Peter Stemmet has left ANN7

Peter Stemmet is the next high-profile departure from ANN7. He left the channel at the end of November (please excuse the late post).


He joined ANN7 at inception, as a presenter of GameOn! in its first form and also the sports anchor on ANN7 Prime. In addition, he occasionally served as fill in general news anchor and most recently presented ANN7's 'Race for the White House,' which was the channel's weekly news recap on the US Elections.

He is also a big time sports blogger.

Prior to joining ANN7, Stemmet was a sports anchor at eNCA and is also a former South African Sports Journalist of the Year. He was one of a few journos that made the jump from eNCA to help start up ANN7.

He leaves ANN7 to be a sports anchor for Al Jazeera English, based in Doha.

eNCA abruptly cancels Meet the Media

As quickly as it came, it is now gone. eNCA has abruptly canceled the excellent Meet the Media with Eusebius McKaiser.

The show, which took to the air on July 3rd this year, was launched in response to then SABC COO, Hlaudi Motsoeneng, canceling all SABC programming analysing the South African media landscape.

Not even Mckaiser knows exactly why the show was cancelled. He responded to a tweet with, "Sorry guys I'm as much in the dark as you. Thanks for tuning in. @AntonHarber [eNCA editor in chief] might explain to you."

In a statement about the show's cancellation, eNCA says the show has "ended its current season on eNCA. In the new year, eNCA will be exploring new concepts for their programming to align with 2017's political calendar. eNCA looks forward to working with Eusebius on new projects in 2017"

These new projects the channel aims to launch will be announced towards the end of February.

Comedy Central Africa shifts the Daily Show

Comedy Central Africa (DStv 122) has announced that from January 4th,  it is shifting The Daily Show with Trevor Noah's timeslot from 9pm to 9:55pm.

The show has been airing at 9pm since Trevor Noah took over as host. Prior to that the late night chat show was broadcast in actual late night (after 11pm).

Shifting the show, which takes way too many production breaks compared to similar late night shows,  means that Comedy Central Africa can now put together a stronger prime-time lineup instead of having to dedicate 9pm, the heart of prime time, to one show daily.

Peter van Onselen leaves ANN7

Peter van Onselen, the long running presenter of ANN7's breakfast show, Vuka Africa signed off today for the last time.


He leaves ANN7 to go back to his former broadcast home, etv, where he used to be a bulletin editor. It is not yet clear exaclty what role he would now have at etv/eNCA.

Though ANN7 experienced countless changes over the last three years, the one constant in the equation wass that Peter would be seen anchoring in the morning. In addition to anchoring the morning hours van Onselen has also contributed greatly to the channel's coverage of bigger events like the elections.

On his last bulletin with the channel, Peter tweeted, "My final hour on @ANN7tv . Big highs, big lows. Watch this space...see you on the other side... and Thank You for your support. #3years OUT ."

This means that Express Lunch's Abigal Visagie is the only on air anchor still at ANN7 who has been with the channel since launch.

It is unclear at this moment who will take over Peter's role on Vuka Africa.

Debora Patta reports from inside Aleppo

Debora Patta, CBS News' Foreign Correspondent usually based in Africa has been reporting out of the war-torn Syrian city of Aleppo over these last few days.

This as the Syrian army continues to make strides in reclaiming the City.

Very few American news organisations ever send their own reporters to locations like Aleppo, instead opting to use stock footage and voice overs for reporting that feels very disconnected from the people on the ground.

However, with Patta on the ground, CBS News users get a very real and hands-on experience of what things are like in the City, like in the above picture where she takes viewers inside one of the tunnels once controlled by the rebels.

You can follow Debora's esperience on her Twitter account, @debora_patta

Guptas tried to buy stake in SABC News Channel

The inquiry into the state of affairs of the public broadcaster began this past week. Among the more interesting revelations of the inquiry this past week was that the Gupta family attempted to buy a stake in the SABC's 24-hour news channel, SABC News Channel (DStv 404).

This is according to Phil Molefe, who was the group's head of news at one point in time and acting CEO thereafter.

Though it would be less controversial if they tried to buy a stake in, say, SABC1, attempting to buy a stake in the public broadcaster's news channel is something that should be raising more concern than what it is. You cannot separate the 24-hour news channel from the newsroom and news gathering operations.

There is also absolutely no way that trying to buy shares in a news channel can be pure of intention. News channels have extremely high operating costs and are generally not profitable to run. Organisations around the world run news channels mainly for the prestige and the only way CNN was able to make a reported $1billion dollars in profit this year is because of record high viewership driving up ad revenue and transmission fees from different pay-tv platforms not only in the US but around the world.  Now consider the fact that SABC News Channel's only income would be transmission fees from Multichoice (ad revenue is small for pay tv channels in SA).

What is the return on investment the Guptas could have received? Editorial influence of the country's largest news organsisation?

This bit of information also adds new perspective on the launch of ANN7. South African went five years with having just one news channel (eNCA), but went a mere three weeks with having two as ANN7 went on air in what seemed to be a rushed launch just 21 days after SABC News Channel went on air.

ANN7 is part of Infinity Media, which has among its shareholders the same Gupta family that tried to buy a stake in a public news channel.

[THIS ARTICLE IS DIFFERENT IN STYLE COMPARED TO MY RECENT WORK. FEEDBACK WOULD BE APPRECIATED]

RATINGS: November 2016 free to air highlights

Below are the most watched free to air news bulletins for the month of November:

• Xhosa News (SABC1): 3 802 629
• Zulu News (SABC1): 3 757194
• eNews Direct Headlines (etv): 2 291 601
• eNews Direct [Sunday broadcast] (etv): 2 095 938
• Afrikaans News (SABC2): 1 483 336
• English News (SABC3): 699 735

Palesa Madisakwane joins ANN7 as anchor

Actress Palesa Madisakwane joined ANN7 last week as a weekday anchor. She will also act as producer for the channel that desperately needs seasoned and experienced individuals from the tv world.

Prior to joining the news channel, Madisakwane acted in soaps airing on SABC1, etv and Mzansi Magic.

Though I am usually skeptical about non-news people joining a news channel, Madisakwane has not been bad. She comes across better than most ANN7 anchors and on social networks she comes across as enthused by her work and actively markets ANN7 to her vast social followers, something most other ANN7 personalities don't do as they too busy gracing the red carpet.

Joining ANN7 last week meant she could attend the company's Christmas party, but also likely means she will be on air for the entire festive season, which is one of the perks of joining a news channel at this point of the year.

She has taken to social networks to talk about her joining the channel, stating that she is bidding farewell to acting and that she looks forward to the career elevation this journey brings her.