SABC2 Dumps Deutsche Welle From Overnights, Opting For SABC News Channel Simulcast Instead

In December 2014, SABC 2 added Deutsche Welle, the German public broadcaster's news service, to its overnight schedule to replace the stale reruns of old SABC News shows that occupied SABC2's graveyard hours before then.

Now, a year later, Deutsche Welle is gone from the SABC2 schedule with SABC2 now opting to simulcast the feed of the SABC News Channel overnight instead.

This means that South African's who do not have DStv now get to see the full flagship bulletin of the public broadcaster's main news bulletin, Prime Time News, in full from midnight (i.e. six hours old news) with Your World following thereafter.

I am surprised this move did not come sooner, actually. Remember when the SABC controversially decided to not renew Siki Mgabadeli's Big Debate programme (which has since moved to eTV)? The reason for the cancellation was that the SABC did not show any news programming that was not under their editorial control. Yet with Deutsche Welle they turned over a five and a half hour block of programming to a germain news broadcaster.

Overall, this is a step in the right direction in providing ordinary South Africans without pay tv access to more in depth news programming originating domestically.

Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin once again ringing in the New Year on CNNi

Anderson Cooper, host of CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 (Tuesday to Saturday morning at 3am), and comedienne, Kathy Griffin, will once again ring in the new year in the US's Eastern Time Zone, live from Time Square.

Last year the show ran for the longest time in its history, kicking off at 9pm (US Eastern Time) and averaged just over 2 million viewers. Back then, they joked on air as they had no idea how they would fill all the extra time. Well these jokes were not heard by CNN's higher ups as the show will now start yet another hour earlier at 8pm US Eastern Time and run to 12:30am New Years Day (That is, 3am South African Time on Friday morning to 7:30am). The major US New Year's Eve Show, Dick Clarke's New Years Rockin' Eve with Ryan Seacrest (that is the actual long name), also starts at 8pm US Time, but the difference is they are stacking the show with 38 musical performances whilst Cooper and Griffin will have none.

I doubt filling the time for these two is that hard though. They are real life friends and that chemistry shines through the broadcast, especially Cooper's reaction to Griffin's often too edgy jokes. The big joke last year was when Griffin dyed Cooper's hair on air without him knowing.

They will not be alone, however. Richard Quest will provide coverage from inside the crowd in Time Square, whilst Poppy Harlow will be all the way in Rio. Randi Kaye will provide coverage from Memphis and Gary Tuchman in Hershey, Pa.

Cooper and Griffin sign off from their marathon broadcast at 12:30am (7:30am here in SA) when Brooke Baldwin and Don Lemon (host of CNN Tonight, Tuesday through Saturday morning at 4am) will take over the broadcast from New Orleans to usher in the New Year in the US's Central Time Zone.

News On Christmas

Christmas time is a time for family and friends but the news cycle continues, no matter how slow it goes.

On Christmas 2014, CNN (DStv 401) had a mere 10 hours of live news on their schedule. When you thought it could not go any lower, it does indeed with them only having a mere 6 hours of live content on Christmas day this year (a quarter of a day), with the rest of the time filled with magazine shows, review shows and two airings of the CNN Heores awards in its entirety [Amount of hours measured using 24 hours in the US Eastern Time zone where the channel is head quartered].

Zain Asher, who has been on air this entire week worked extra hours in addition to her own and so did business anchor, Richard Quest, who did quite a few editions of CNN Newsroom. Quest, who has been on air every Christmas for the last few years (to allow those that celebrate the day to do so and to have a nice day filled with feel feel good stories) even has a Christmas tradition of his own whereby he cracks Christmas crackers on air with the behind the scenes personalities, seen below:



On eNCA, the Christmas schedule once again started an hour later, allowing the anchors to sleep in an extra hour, this year being Gareth Edwards who got to do breakfast show duty this year. Gareth had been anchoring News Night in place for Jeremy Maggs and Iman Rappetti who deserve the award for easiest schedule in news considering Gareth fills in for both of them most Fridays and now the whole festive week. Thulasizwe Simelane stood in for Cathy Mohlahlana and Joanne Josephs from 9am onward. Florence Letoaba did News Night

ANN7 had weekend Vuka Africa anchor Liezle Wilson anchoring on Christmas and, as they did last year, broadcast a live Church sermon to commemorate the day. In prime time Chante Janjies anchored, which she really did not want to do, as she tweeted. She ended after ANN7 Prime and the channel just rebroadcast her same news bulletin for the rest of the evening.

Morning Live, which was broadcast on SABC News Channel only and not SABC 2 had some live crossings to usual newsreader Ayanda Allie Paine who was capturin the festive spirit from outside the studio whilst Vaylen Kirtley held things down in the studio. The channel, once again, had the most (live) news on Christmas.

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On Christmas Eve, both eNCA and CNNi broke with tradition and chose not to cover the Pope's Christmas Eve Mass at all, even though they had in previous years. This year, the broadcast also made the jump from SABC3 to SABC2, the public broadcaster's channel featuring the most festive content. ANN7 also broadcast a large portion of the event live, but did so using a broadband connection which obviously is not even close to being as good as a high quality satellite connection as SABC2 had.

Which South African News Channel Has The Biggest presence Online?

With the world moving increasingly online to stay abreast with the latest news, South African news broadcasters too are spending more to put out a quality online product. But which news channel has the biggest presence online?

5. Business Day TV 
Business Day TV's site ranks as the 9 352nd most popular site in South Africa. It is also important to note that Business Day TV's website is totally separate from the main Business Day website, which is quite popular in its own right (Business Day is the name of a newspaper, printed on paper, for you online only guys).
When it comes to audience engagement, BDTV does quite well. Its bounce rate, representing the amount of peope that leave the website after visiting only one page is 50%, lower than the rest of the websites listed here. The average visitor visits 2 pages per visit on the site and spends approximately 2 minutes and 14 seconds on the site. Just under 80 % of visitors to the site are visiting from South Africa.
The four most searched for terms directing visitors to the site are all related to its name: BDTV, "Business Day Live," " Business Day" and, quite creatively, "Businessday."

Twitter Followers:15 500+
Facebook Likes: 87 (On official page, as linked by their official website)

4. ANN7
ANN7 still has a long way to go to reach the top of the news mountain. The channel has the 5 513th most popular site in South Africa. The organisation should really be putting effort into its website if it wants to attract visitors. Articles are poorly written (Sometimes one whole article is one long paragraph), certain sections terribly maintained and some sections just seem as if it contains data that was there since the website was developed.

When it comes to bounce rate, which measures the percentage of viewers who leave the site after just one page, the channel actually does quite well with 61.8%, lower than that of the other general news channels. Average pageviews per visitor is also relatively good at 1.9 pages. Hoever, viewsers spend a relatively little amount of time on the site, with the average visitor staying for about 2 minutes and 2 seconds. The channel's online audience is also the most South Africa, at 90.7%  of visitors coming from SA.
The most searched for term that directed to ann7.com was "African News Network" with the next two most popular positions being held by phrases related to the channel's South African of the Year Awards.

Twitter Followers: 51 900+
Facebook Likes: 13 809

3. CNBC Africa
CNBCAfrica.com is the 3942nd most popular site in South Africa (Its rank in Nigeria is even better in the 3200s). It does however boast quite an educated audience base, with a large percentage not only attending university but actually completing graduate school.
When it comes to engagement, the site is doing not so well. It has the highest bounce rate at 72.6%, with a daily page views per visitor of 1.42.
Just under 35% of the site's viewers are from South Africa while 29% come from Nigeria, followed by India and the US.

Twitter Followers: 93 000+
Facebook Likes: 50424 (Official page only)

2. SABC News
The SABC's news portal ranks as the 345th most popular site in the country. This one site contains news aggregated from the organsations various divisions including regional radio stations.
85.2% of the website's visitors come from South Africa followed by (what I think is rather odd) India, then the US and the UK.
When it comes to visitor engagement, the site sees just red. Its bounce rate of 69% is 19% above its preceding three month average, its daily page view per visitor of 1.47 is 6.4% below its average and the average visitor stays for 19% less time at 1 minute 53 seconds.
The search term sending the most traffic to the site is ' renamo,' the Mozambican National Resistance.
Twitter Followers: 560 000+(@SABCNewsOnline only)
Facebook Likes: 214 151

1. eNCA

Being the most watched news channel on the DStv platform translated to having the most visitors online for eNCA. enca.com is the 122nd most popular site in all of South Africa and 18 235th in the world. Though eighteen thousand is a large amount, this position is actually an improvement of 6700 positions as compared to the prior three months.

When it comes to engagement on the website, eNCA's bounce rate, which measures how many visitors leave the site after viewing only one page is 62.1% (slighty worse than ANN7's and much better than SABC News'), with the average daily visitor viewing 1.78 pages per visit. The average visitor also spends 2 minutes and 55 seconds on the site, the longest time of the bigger channels.
enca.com's visitors are also 'less South African,' with 84.7% of its visitors coming from South Africa. Nigeria, the US, India and the UK are respectively the next most popular countries to visit the site.
The most popular phrase searched for that sent viewers to enca.com was "new human ancestor," referencing the Homo Naledi discovery earlier this year. (Interestingly, more visitors directed to enca.com comes from google.com and NOT from google.co.za)

Twitter Followers: 740 000+
Facebook Likes: 360 213+
[Having the most viewers does not necessarily mean having the largest online presence though. CNN has the most popular website among US broadcasters by a large margin, yet is the third most watched pay tv news channel there]

The data above is courtesy of Alexa Competitive Intellegence.

News Channels Unprepared As Zuma Unexpectedly Appoints a New, New Minister of Finance

With the extremely unexpected news this past Sunday of Pravin Gordhan replacing the new Minister of Finance, South African news channels showed their lack of staff on a Sunday to cover the breaking news.

When the news broke, eNCA did what they do with all their major breaking news stories: move the anchor over to the side of the studio used for News Night. eNCA had Thulasizwe Similane Skypping live from the highly unexpected presser and displaying eNCA's depth of talent at a time when news channels are understaffed at the weekend. However, soon they were back to their standard format, sports news and all.
Instead of going to a taped show at 10:30pm, eNCA added another live news bulletin to the schedule which included the first interview with DA leader Mmusi Maimane.

SABC news Channel had a reporter live from the event. However, not too long after the announcement, the channel was back to doing what they seem to do most days, showing social events, this time the NAFCOC dinner.

ANN7 has all sort of weird characters anchoring on the channel on the weekends, like prospective actors and celebrities and reality stars. So, at 10:20pm, ANN7 did something I have never seen before in all of my years of watching live news: they had a show anchored BY TELEPHONE when ANN7 Assignment's Editor,Cecilia Russel, replaced the highly inexperienced weekend anchor to anchor the channel's coverage of the breaking news. Her first guest was ANN7's new business editor, Stevie B, who was also on the phone, mind you. I do not like the sound of one person on a news broadcast speaking on the telephone, but to have both people on the screen doing a call in just does not sound nice.

Though the news channels showed strain with their lack of staff on a Sunday night for this kind of news, the business news channels were even worse. In fact, Business Day TV remained offline whilst CNBC Africa continued with their taped content, not even putting an on screen advisory on the screen.

ANN7 Launches New Prime Time Business Show

ANN7 this past Monday November 30th launched a new daily business news show, called BizSense.

The show airs weekdays at 8pm and is anchored by KayaFM's business news DJ, Stevie B.

Airing at 8pm also means that the excellent ANN7 Prime, anchored by Sebenzile Nkambule, loses television time.

ANN7 now joins the other news channels with daily business reports, eNCA has Moneyline, anchored by Siki Mgabadeli and airs at 8:30pm while SABC News Channel has Business Report, which is anchored by Francis Herd and airs at 6pm.

The show has promised to differentiate itself from the competitors by focusing on the consumer, in other words, exactly what their competitors are promising.

The channel had not programming advisory issued ahead of time, even though, quite strangely, they actually have a marketing department. I wonder what they have ever done.

I also do not get the whole purpose of starting a business news show on November 30th, the start of the festive season when the corporate world tends to cool down and be less newsworthy.

BizSense is, of course, not ANN7's first attempt at a daily business news show. Previously, they had Rands and Sense, which was anchored by Nastassia Arendse by what quietly removed from the schedule when she left the channel. Not bringing back the Rands and Sense brand is a smart move, even though it has been an ANN7 brand since inception, as SABC2 has a show with the same name on their schedule.

On a side note, I was reading Nastassia's Twitter feed a while ago and when asked if she missed television, she echoed what so many others said, no, they do not miss the egos at all.

BizSense's first guest was Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies, and the main revelation of the first edition was that the earlier you book your fight or accommodation, the cheaper it is. I kid you not.