The Commission for Gender Equality (CGE) has called for the reduction of self-regulation in the advertising sector if systematic discrimination is to be rooted out.
The CGE was giving testimony before the SA Human Right Commission's (SAHRC's) inquiry into discriminatory narratives and portrayal within the advertising industry in a bid to eliminate racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination.
CGE head of research and policy Dr Thabo Rapoo said keeping the self-regulatory regime used by the Advertising Regulatory Board (ARB) in its current form would continue making it almost impossible to deal with entities that did not comply with standards or codes set out within the sector.
“We can have a number of recommendations such as the testing of the adverts looking at the gender and race gaps and all the factors that are required to ensure that adverts meet the test but as long as we have entities that are not duty bound to comply, we will still find ourselves in a Catch-22 situation,” Rapoo said.
He said a new mechanism that affected all members of the sector, regardless of whether they were members of the ARB, had to be put in place.
“We must move towards compelling even non-members who do not want to adhere to specific standards,” Rapoo said.
His testimony came after Primedia Broadcasting senior officials faced criticism before the inquiry after they were accused of refusing to give testimony on the racial makeup of owners of Primedia Group.
Primedia Broadcasting head of legal Tholoana Ncheke was asked by evidence leader Buang Jones to testify on the racial makeup of ownership of Primedia Group.
Ncheke said she could not immediately give the answer as she would have to first check the shareholding percentage of the group. Jones quizzed Ncheke on the directorship of the group, which she said she would also have to check.
Inquiry panellist Prof Tshepo Madlingozi interjected and pointed out that all Primedia executive directors were white males, after an online search.
Ncheke confirmed the information but said she and Premedia Broadcasting CFO Tezne Saunders had confined preparation for their testimony to the terms of reference of the inquiry.
Jones complained that the Primedia officials were reluctant to give answers. “My only concern is the reluctance by the witnesses to answer questions and to want to dictate to the commission to confine itself when the questions we are asking here will be assisting our own investigation in making a determination in addressing other allegations that had been made before this inquiry panel,” Jones said.
This resulted in the officials being excused from testifying before the inquiry and Primedia CEO Jonathan Procter being asked to testify on Friday.
EFF head of policy Mbuyiseni Ndlozi told the inquiry on Monday that Primedia allegedly enjoyed a lion’s share of advertising spend in radio due to its ownership and audience being predominantly white.
Ndlozi said massive ad-spend was being allocated to Premedia’s radio stations 702, 94.7 and KFM despite having a smaller listenership compared to SABC radio stations that commanded millions in listenership.
While the inquiry focused on reasons for and ways of eliminating racism and other forms of discrimination within the advertising production pipeline, Ndlozi called for the commission to focus on ownership and audience and how they influenced racist discrimination within the sector.
