In February this year I had the trauma of producing a new show, Frankly Speaking, for SABC3, anchored by renowned political commentator and author Onkgopotse JJ Tabane.

The SABC's approach to Tabane, who is known to hold no brief for no one, was very strange especially after an era where the likes of the SABC 8 spoke of harrowing tales of censorship and interference.

The leadership of the news division had promised not to interfere with how the show was to be run. However, it was not to be as we were constantly pressured to water down what was initially meant to be a robust show.

The flighting of the show was truly a tokenistic move by the SABC to be seen to be bringing in critical voices into the corporation meanwhile restraining the show.

From the first episode evidence emerged that the show couldn't be effective in 24 minutes. Comments on social media were very critical on the time aspect of the show.

For that reason we decided to do the show in two parts on a few occasions, such as when we had Pravin Gordhan as a guest or when we had other major guests or debates that were impossible to complete in 24 minutes.

We had to improvise that way after the request for the show to be given an hour was rejected.

In June, when the studio was not available, we proposed to do a roadshow, whereby the programme would have travelled to provinces to talk to people on the ground.

This proposal was also rejected without any good reason.