M-Net turns down PW interview
2006-01-19 08:10
Johannesburg - Pay television channel M-Net has also turned down an interview with former state president PW Botha, spokesperson Lani Lombard said on Wednesday.
"It does not meet our criteria for broadcast and the interview is not at this stage suitable for our audience," she said.
She did not elaborate.
Earlier on Wednesday e.tv said it had decided against broadcasting the interview because the production company, Thuthuka Productions, wanted too much for it.
"(They) wanted an absurd amount for it and we would have had to edit out a lot of it," editor-in-chief Debora Patta said.
"Their price was just not market related. It was economics which made us decide against it, not politics."
The SABC also decided against broadcasting the interview last Thursday to coincide with Botha's 90th birthday.
According to media reports the public broadcaster "pulled the plug" on the interview, claiming that Thuthuka Productions shot the interview outside the SABC's guidelines and editorial control.
The interviewer, former SABC journalist Cliff Saunders, said Thuthuka was negotiating with foreign television stations like the British Broadcasting Corporation, Sky TV and Dutch television to sell the interview to them.
"Dutch TV has especially expressed interest in the interview. Locally we may go the DVD route - 'the interview that nobody wanted to broadcast'," Saunders said.
- SAPA