The SABC has announced that it plans to remove stand-alone sports segments, City Press reports. The broadcasting company intends to merge sports bulletins with news segments and the change will occur across all its public radio stations.
As a result of this decision, over 30 sports bulletin readers are facing potential job losses. Due to the SABC’s financial struggles, they have made this decision to cut costs as a part of their turnaround plan.
According to City Press, the SABC sports department sent an email on Tuesday to notify station managers and sports readers of the plan. It is reported that the email said, “As from April 1, SABC Sport will no longer provide sport bulletins on all radio stations. As a result, SABC Sport will not renew any contract with the bulletin readers – ie [sic] sport will not continue contracting bulletin readers at SABC Sport as this function will be collapsed together with the news bulletin readers”.
“Stations that would like to retain bulletin presenters on their platforms will have to motivate for such approval,” read the email.
The approval for this is to be sought from Nada Wotshela, the group executive for SABC radio. Wotshela will determine whether they will carry the cost or not.
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