POINT OF ORDER
TIM COHEN: Miners, like music lovers, have options
In some important respects, the latest Mining Charter debate is comparable to the furore around the decision by former SABC chief operating officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng that 90% of all music played by SABC radio stations was to be local. It’s not an instinctive comparison, but when you think about it, the similarities are striking. Of all the weird and wonderful decisions that Motsoeneng made, the 90% decision was perhaps the only one that was genuinely and broadly popular. That, in itself, should sound the alarm. Musicians around the country liked the idea, obviously, because it was directed at them, and I suspect people in general felt, why not? Give the local artists a chance. Everyone who was against the idea was automatically classified as being against local music, because in SA, arguing something that is just common sense is often regarded as an act of retrograde insolence. Yet Motsoeneng’s action was a disaster. Advertisers worried that listenership would decline, which it did,...
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