SECTOR 3 3.4 The state/public broadcaster is accountable to the public through a board representative of society at large and selected in an independent, open and transparent manner. The SABC is a Pty Ltd company with the government as the only shareholder. Its board is made up of twelve non-executive members as well as the Group Chief Executive Officer, the Chief Operations Officer and the Chief Financial Officer. According to section 13 of the Broadcasting Act, the non-executive members are appointed by the president of the state “on the advice of the National Assembly” as follows: The parliamentary committee on communications places adverts in newspapers to ask for nominations; the committee examines the nominations, having regard for representivity, requisite skills and commitment to freedom of expression, and then shortlists candidates for public interviews; the committee decides on the final list and submits it to parliament for ratification; parliament forwards the list of nominees to the president for appointment. When parliament called for nominations for a new SABC board at the end of 2009, civil society - in the form of the SOS coalition – started a public campaign and made sure that the communications committee advertised its invitation not only in three newspapers, as it had done previously, but also on SABC radio stations. This time the committee received over 200 nominations and the people who submitted them spelt out in some detail what had motivated their choice and why they thought their nominee would make a good board member. The committee also complied with SOS’s request to publish the CVs of short-listed applicants before interviews took place in open hearings. These were attended by an unusually large number of reporters and other observers and the chair reminded his colleagues that they were indeed under public scrutiny: “Guys, we’re all being watched”. Thus, for the first time since the appointment of the inaugural board of the SABC shortly before the democratic elections in 1994, the selection process was truly transparent and the new board was lauded for being much more representative than its predecessors. Nevertheless, representation is still a problem. The criteria set out in section 13 of the act refer mainly to technical and professional requirements. Applicants are “to be persons suited to serve on the board by virtue of their qualifications, expertise and experience in the fields of broadcasting policy and technology, broadcasting regulation, media law, business practice and finance, marketing, journalism, entertainment and education, social and labour issues.” This list rules out more than 75 per cent of the population. While rural women, for example, represent a large constituency they are not represented in any form on the board. 46 AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER SOUTH AFRICA 2010