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This will lift your spirits: the big number is Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

The arena for this battle – and don’t let anyone tell you that it isn’t a battle – has been Icasa and though the submissions to the regulator from the public and stakeholders are as dry as toast, blood pressure is up on all sides. The money is big and the stakes are high.

On the one hand, there is the government’s determination not to allow pay-TV operations to acquire exclusive rights to broadcast national sporting events that all South Africans should be able to watch and enjoy – and, crucially, for children on all backgrounds to be inspired to grow up to be national sporting heroes.

There are also the national sports bodies, which rely on money from broadcast rights for an average 60% of their revenue. Internationally, sports bodies’ revenue comes from – in descending order of importance – broadcasting rights, sponsorships, ticket sales, merchandising and government subsidies and grants, according to Amanda Armstrong, a director and law specialist in telecommunications and broadcasting at Werksmans Attorneys. In South Africa, the government’s contribution was less than 1% of the annual revenue of most sports bodies in 2008.

There are the free-to-air channels, e.tv and the SABC, for which there are obvious commercial gains – both in terms of audience and advertising – if they can get the first option to bid without competition from pay-TV operations for more live sport. SABC and e.tv say – a tad sanctimoniously – in their Icasa submissions that the “… the broadcast of key sporting events on pay-TV has a negative impact on the participation of many South Africans in sport and could undermine the transformation in sport”. But free-to-air channels can often struggle to find air space to broadcast live events amid their local content programming. It’s worth noting, for instance, that the tripartite agreement between the PSL, SuperSport and the SABC (struck after SuperSport snapped up the exclusive rights in 2007 for the PSL from SABC), the public broadcaster was in fact required to broadcast more games than it did in the previous season when it held all the PSL rights.

The last players in this drama are the pay-TV operators such as DStv’s SuperSport as well as the new guys on the block, ODM and Super 5 Media, which are expected to launch this year. SuperSport, which coughed up about R2bn for the exclusive broadcast rights of PSL soccer games over five years, is hugely concerned about the current Icasa review. Chiefly, the problem is that there’s no point is spending large sums of money if you can’t get them exclusively… TO READ THE FULL COLUMN, CLICK HERE TO GO TO MONEYWEB.

First up, Lisa MacLeod, who was the chief sub and managing editor of Business Day a few years back, has been made managing editor of the Financial Times in London. WHICH IS HUGE!!! And she’s only in her 30s so you can see how good Lisa is to rise that high at the FT,  one of the most respected papers in the world.

I worked for Lisa at Business Day in the 90s and she was a superb manager and one of the most organised – and genuinely nice – people I’ve come across in journalism. She also happens to come from Grubstreet’s town, East London, so don’t let any tell you that this is a plekkie of skates and surfers. Lisa has been working at the FT for quite a few years.

And then another East Londoner (though to be fair he was only born here and I think he might deny it)  is up to interesting things. Matthew Buckland is leaving 24.com’s innovation unit,  20FourLabs, to do his own thing. This includes a digital agency and consultancy based in Cape Town and Joburg and launching a new website, Memeburn, — which Matthew describes as “a Mashable/Techcrunch for emerging market tech“.

So exciting for stuff!  We could do with a bit more spunk in SA’s online news world – and Grubstreet is contributing to Memeburn so watch this space!

.. Look to the heavens. hold your hands up and chant “Serenity Now” – A montage from the classic “Serenity Now” Seinfeld episode.

Not only is this classic George Castanza rant from Seinfeld a laugh but I bet you wish sometimes that you could lose it with your boss like this.

Uasa is a well organised, non-politically aligned union with about 75 000 members and the deal entitles Safrea members (and I’m pleased to say I’m one)  to join the union at R64 a month, which will get them access to the union’s legal and labour-related services and discounts on products such as pensions, medical aid, insurance, car and home loans.

Clive Lotter, Safrea’s chairman, says the union has its own legal department led by an in-house advocate and a 24-hour legal hotline. The legal department will review standard freelance contracts and will be able to help freelance journalists in disputes to a certain extent.

From left, Safrea chairman Clive Lotter, UASA chief operating officer Leon Olivier and UASA CEO Koos Oosthuizen putting pen to paper on Friday in Johannesburg.

The key thing, says Lotter, is that the alliance will help freelancers to become more professional – and move out the “working on a handshake” territory – and also create the opportunity for freelance and salaried journalists to join forces. As this is an alliance between Uasa and Safrea – and not an amalgamation – it creates an avenue whereby fulltime hacks will be able to join the union through bodies such as ProJourn and Sanef.

“This is the first step in organising journalists into a force which can defend its own interests,” says Lotter.

Uasa, which is affiliated to the Fedusa federation, has access to Parliament and to Nedlac. This is the first time that Uasa has entered into such an alliance.

Grubstreet thinks this is a hugely positive move. There is more and more demand for freelancing – especially since media organisation cut staff in the recession but are still in need of content – but rates still seem to vary largey R1-R2 a word, which is not great. Many organisation are extremely tardy in paying for work done or indulge in the dirty tricks department such as holding onto copy (with no intention of using it) to keep it out of the hands of rivals.

Well done Clive and all the committee members at Safrea!

Click here to go to the interview with Ferial Haffajee.

Click here to go to my Moneyweb column, which this week is about the battle of the Sunday broadsheets.

QUESTION: The Sunday Independent has been the poor step-sister at Independent Newspapers for some time. What did you find when you walked in the door as editor? (Previously Sefara was at City Press and Independent Newspapers.)

Makhudu Sefara

ANSWER: There weren’t many people. The paper had survived on group contributions (from other Independent newspapers and from cross-title units such as the political desk) but we’ve tried to turn things around and propel the paper in a different direction. We are now joined by Mpumelelo Mkhabela from the Sunday Times as the deputy editor and we’ll be getting other new people very soon. We’re putting out the ads… There are great plans to pay much more attention to the title.
The past five months have been quite gruelling… but we’ve seen the numbers increasing. In September last year, our total sales were about 31 000 and going down. We’ve now managed to stop that decline and not only that but to get 4000 new readers since then and the graph is pointing upwards.
I think that’s what it makes it worthwhile… it’s not that this is difficult but it requires quite a lot of time that you don’t always have to deal with the many things that require your attention.
But you see the response that we have received, and you can stop and say: ‘Ja, it’s really worth the fight. Let’s keep on going back there and trying to improve and change things here and there and look at what we don’t provide and how we can accommodate it in the title, where we can get the resources to provide new items’ … Of course, it’s a constant struggle, to look at what works and what doesn’t work, what must be retained and what must be thrown out the window. And if you’re throwing it out, how many readers are going out with it. If you’re introducing something new, to how many people is this going to be relevant. It’s a constant to and fro.
But so far it’s looking good and we’re hoping to maintain the momentum… towards the end of the year, we should be chasing 40 000 to 45 000 (sales).

QUESTION: When the Sunday Independent was started, The Sunday Times had a very clear proposition in that it was the agenda setter of the country and you went to the Independent for the extra stuff – the analysis and the good international copy. Are you guys sticking with this traditional Sunday Independent role when the Sunday Times is no longer consistently setting the news agenda?
ANSWER: I don’t think we need to surrender the battle to set the agenda to the Sunday Times – and to others. What I think we should do is to use whatever resources we can muster on the front page to set our agenda. If you look at the stories we did, for instance, Nathi Mthethwa’s deal and the hotel in Durban, those stories have set the agenda. I’ve gone on a number of radio stations and those stories have continued for a number of days – if not weeks, to be followed up daily papers.
Traditionally, the Sunday Times published their lead and on Monday everyone was following up. They still continue to try to do that but my view is that they are not consistent. There are times when they get a good story like the Jacob Zuma “Babygate” story and the Jacob Maroga R85-million. But if you look at how anybody with resources could have got the Jacob Maroga piece, it’s easy stuff – it’s not something that you can say that only the Sunday Times should do. So we’re going to try to do that.

QUESTION: But do you have enough staff to do that?
ANSWER: I think our (cross-title) politics team is actually the strongest in the country. It has about eight people and politics, for us, has become the mainstay of the paper. So we’re looking at politics, investigations and news breaks on the front page… I’m also very keen on education and health as those are minefields that are not explored properly so when we get more people (at the paper), we’re going direct them into those areas… I’m quite certain there are many stories that are untold, both about the hardships that people experience and the corruption involved in multibillion tenders.
The challenge is to be able to do that and retain the quality analysis of our own national politics and the geo-politics, for example, what’s happening in Greece at the moment.

QUESTION: The Sunday broadsheet market has got so interesting this year, with Ferial Haffajee now at City Press and taking steps to reposition the paper. What do you make it of it?
ANSWER: The paper that (previous City Press editor) Mathatha (Tsedu) put out was a distinctly African newspaper. The paper that Ferial is putting out is a paper that is trying to balance a mix of races. It’s a tough task that she has because she’s trying to downplay politics and introduce new elements. The paper Mathatha produced was by comparison heavy with very few light pieces – and it worked to an extent as the sales went up to about 200 000 but then it stopped growing.
If you’re Ferial, you want to attract mainly people who are reading the Sunday Times to increase your numbers. You need to be mindful not to lose the 200 000 people who are already buying your paper. It’s a balancing act of sorts, an egg dance. It’s a tough task but a very interesting one.
And, if you’re Mondli at the Sunday Times, for example, and looking at what Ferial is doing and what we’re doing at the Sunday Independent – even though we’re coming in with only 31 000 to 35 000 and still counting – you want to ask yourself, if you’re at 500 000 (sales), do you want to increase or maintain this? Are there things that you need to do that you think Ferial is going to do to try to steal readers from you or is City Press going to appeal to other people who not reading the Sunday Times?
So it means Mondli must check constantly what City Press is doing and what we are doing and I’m saying (for the Sunday Independent) that it has not been a year yet. Give us till the end of this year and, hopefully, given the resources that we will get, we will be an entirely different ball game. The paper that we will be putting out will be both setting the agenda and offering readers in-depth analysis on both local and international news in a way that nobody else is going to be able to do.

GILL MOODIE: There is obviously a decision by Independent Newspaper to invest in the paper?
MAKHUDU SEFARA: Ja, for the first time in a long time we now have a fulltime editor and deputy focused on the paper from Tuesday to Saturday – though it feels like from Tuesday to Tuesday — and we will be getting new people and things should improve. It is already much better now than a year ago in terms of staffing.

QUESTION: Last year was a horrendous year for everyone in terms of advertising. How are things are looking for Sunday Independent this year?
ANSWER: This is an interesting story. When the Sunday Independent was founded, the model was to have the paper sustain itself on the cover price,… (The paper cost R12.50 in the third quarter of last year) that it should be able to recoup production costs. As a result they did not employ someone to look after advertising for the paper and when the paper failed to sell the number of copies envisaged, that created problems. It needed to subsidised.
But effective last month, we have now employed someone to look at advertising specifically for the paper. And it is already looking good… She said last week that she had already made her target for this month. So we’re beginning to see the first sun rays to give us hope that this thing can be turned around if you pay particular attention to it… I’m quite confident that in quite a short space of time we will be able to announce that the paper is now viable.