And so, we stumble to an end that’s not an end. We’ll only know who wins in 2019, and whether there’d be anything left to save. For now, the land is ruled by self-anointed queens, untouchable misogynists, and an assortment of dynasties and bastards. And, of course, the three dragons — hunted, unhinged and dangerously unstable.
It’s fun, but pointless, to try to match every Game of Thrones character with a South African, naturalised or otherwise. Suffice to say that Granny Gupta, mother of dragons, hopefully looks into mirrors and weeps.
If you’re missing Game of Thrones and have an appetite for implausible tales, you can always tune in to ANN7. Like Game of Thrones, it is a DStv exclusive.
But ANN7 barely matters anymore. It’s become just the latest organisation trying to get some distance from the Guptas.
It has become impossible to find a single company willing to defend doing business with the brothers.
Unless, of course, you ask MultiChoice. Its continued support is another exclusive from the people who bring you DStv.
When this season of Game of Thrones started, I called on MultiChoice to take the nation into its confidence. Why does it still choose to enable SA’s fake-news network? Surely, as every single company stops doing business with the Guptas, MultiChoice would find it in itself to take SA’s side?
The Guptas are now so toxic that even the toxic have dropped them. The brothers have even been dropped by Trillian Capital! Trillian! I thought Trillian was the Guptas. Apparently not.
That whole business with Tegeta and Optimum and Glencore and the Eskom prepayment of R500m, apparently it has all cast Trillian in an unflattering light. This has had "a negative impact on the ability of Trillian Capital Partners and its staff to reach their full potential", the company said when it announced the buyout of majority shareholder Salim Essa, who is a key Gupta ally.
But back to MultiChoice, which did respond to my heartfelt invitation, but will not be unburdening itself of ANN7. It has a "legally binding agreement with ANN7", it said, before reminding us that it is a "responsible corporate citizen". No argument there; it is comprehensively responsible for enabling Gupta TV’s deliberate destabilisation of the country. I would like to thank MultiChoice for the clarification. It has given SA huge clarity about the kind of company it is — one that believes it has no responsibility to South Africans. MultiChoice might claim to be "Enriching Lives", but that could be more particularly stated as "Enriching Some Very Specific Lives".
Of course, MultiChoice is wholly owned by Naspers, the oldest, whitest, monopoliest capital of them all. It is satisfying to see Naspers facing immense shareholder pressure over the massive money the owners decide to pay themselves. Thanks to a special class of shares in the company, a handful of gentlemen control 68% of the Naspers shareholder vote, Business Day reports.
These special Naspers shares, according to the report, "appear to be controlled through a complex web of holdings by Naspers chairman Koos Bekker, veteran director Cobus Stofberg and Sanlam". Supporters of ANN7 have been praising MultiChoice for its commitment to diversity and media freedom. They have been slow in joining the dots.
To be clear, I do not call for the closure of ANN7. What will happen to the 7,500 people it claims to employ? Also, how does it fit all those people into some buildings that appear to be the size of a somewhat large Pick n Pay?
But I now realise I have been unfair to ANN7. It just does what it’s supposed to do. Liars gonna lie; haters gonna hate. And I have been unfair to MultiChoice too. It is, after all, a monopoly. Why would it want to act in the interest of anyone but itself?
Anton Harber convincingly argues that DStv should not drop ANN7 as "monopoly pay-television owners should not decide what news choices we have". I quite buy that. Naspers (or Nasionale Pers) was founded more than a century ago to promote Afrikaner nationalism. The Daily Maverick recently published evidence of the sustained support Naspers gave the apartheid government even as that government was preparing to unban the ANC.
Stand by your man?
Naspers does, even when those men no longer stand by themselves. Starts feeling like a bit of a pattern, hey? When days are dark and friends are few, Naspers will be there for you. Full disclosure: I made a very public commitment to cancelling my DStv subscription if MultiChoice didn’t drop ANN7 by the time GoT ended. This landed me in a world of trouble at home.
My husband is a journalist and can’t do his job without access to the news channels (ANN7 excluded). On reflection, it wasn’t ideal that he found out about my boycott in Business Day. So, we’ve reached an uneasy compromise. I cancel my DStv Premium subscription; he takes out a DStv CompactPlus subscription. It is hardly what either of us wanted, but with monopolies, only the monopoly owner gets what it wants. Thanks, Nasionale Pers; you win again.
If you are not married to a journalist, I applaud your foresight and envy your options.
The fact that no government since 1994 has found the will to break the Naspers monopoly shows how shallowly it believes in "radical economic transformation" and the insidious "white monopoly capital".
MultiChoice seems intensely uninterested in what a 'responsible corporate citizen' might be
MultiChoice seems intensely uninterested in what a "responsible corporate citizen" might be. It can’t drop ANN7, it says. It can’t divorce the devil because there’s a signed contract with said devil. But, honourable MultiChoice, did you not agree to get married to the Guptas in the first place? When they came to MultiChoice, did you offer them coffee? Did you remember to ask a white person to bring it in? Or was it not yet known they don’t accept refreshments from black people?
Then again, MultiChoice is pretty used to catering for the toxic. Ousted SABC chief Hlaudi Motsoeneng was presumably also offered refreshments when he signed his R553m deal with MultiChoice.
I do not allege any impropriety on the part of MultiChoice or Hlaudi Motsoeneng. That would be a decision for the country’s prosecuting authorities, if any can be found.
MultiChoice was never going to do the right thing: doing the right thing has never been part of its business model. Its incontestable monopoly, 23 years into democracy, is more evidence of the cynicism and hypocrisy of the Zuma-Gupta complex.
If we are going to talk about companies that show contempt for South Africans, we can’t only talk about Trillian and Oakbay (now the former owner of ANN7); we must talk about companies such as MultiChoice too. Of course, we can’t talk about MultiChoice without talking about Naspers. But that is a story for a different day.
May your attempts to leave DStv be more convincing than mine. And may we all press harder for honourable, progressive companies that are worthy of our money.
• Wiggett is founder and creative director of Fairly Famous, a progressive advertising agency.
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