Saturday 20 May 2017

eNCA shakes up actuality programming

BackChat
eNCA has over the past few days announced new additions to the channel's already strong lineup of actuality programming.


BackChatis the channel's new show geared towards the country's youth encouraging them to challenge everything.

The weekly show is anchored by Busisiwe Gumede and Sia Leita.

BackChat premieres this Thursday evening at 9:30pm.

Unfortunately, the show is not live, and next Thursday's episode was already recorded the Friday before. A six day lag is massive in aever-changingng world and for a show that incorporates social media aspects.

The second new addition to the lineup is PolitiBureau, for which the channel did send out a detailed press release, found below:

"

Seasoned and senior political reporters, Thulasizwe Simelane and Xoli Mngambi bring their extensive field reporting experience to The PolitBureau studio.

The PolitBureau, hosted by Thulasizwe Simelane and Xoli Mngambi, makes its debut on eNCA this Sunday, 21 May at 10:30am. The show promises to go beyond the spin, analyse the policy, and reveal what’s really at stake in the battles between personalities and ideologies in South Africa’s political space.

eNCA Channel News Director Mapi Mhlangu says eNCA is dedicating its top talent to helping viewers navigate the choppy political waters of 2017. “Simelane and Mngambi have a record of asking the tough questions on issues that matter, of people who do not necessarily want to answer. They will now use this experience to examine South African politics on a weekly basis; what was said, who said it, what it means and sometimes what was not said, and why," she says.

Thulasizwe Simelane has more than 15 years’ experience in the media space and a regular stand-in anchor on the channel. “As a South African journalist, I feel privileged to live in a country where the media can still help citizens interpret the extraordinary political events of our time”, says Simelane. “In writing a history of our present, things look both strange and familiar. My experience as a journalist on the rest of the continent allows me to see South Africa at 23 in a special light. How do we learn from what has gone before, from our neighbours near and far, and avoid making the mistakes in Africa’s post-independence political history.”

Xoli Mngambi, who joined the station in 2008, has proven that he is ready to tackle a bigger anchoring role and the station sees his step up to The PolitBureau as a natural progression for the talented broadcaster. “I’ve been talking to politicians and ordinary people since the road to Polokwane. A decade later I am struck by the echoes, but I am also intrigued by how much has been forgotten and how much people have erased, willingly or unwittingly. To live through these events and be given the privilege to help tell these ordinary and extraordinary stories of our times on a platform like eNCA: I am honoured." says Mngambi.

Regular contributors to the show will include our team of top reporters; Karyn Maughan, Lester Kiewit, Nickolaus Bauer and Annika Larsen. The station has also secured the services of analysts, who will further enrich the show’s political offering.

The PolitBureau will premier this Sunday, 21 May, at 10:30am with a repeat at 7:30pm.

"


To make way for PolitiBureau, Maggs on Media vacates its long-held 10:30am slot for 11:30am, still on Sundays.

Tuesday 16 May 2017

eNCA announes new News Night anchors, tweaks schedule

New News Night anchors, Cathy Mohlahlana and Vuyo Mvoko
eNCA yesterday announced that Cathy Mohlahlana and Vuyo Mvoko will take over anchoring duties on News Night.

The two have been screen testing together since April during Cathy's long running midmorning slot.

On the opportunity, Mvoko said, "Cathy and I hope to rise to the challenge of telling the story as it unfolds."

Both have been tweeting and replying to congratulations messages from colleagues and the public since the announcement was made. It is perhaps their social media presence that will be their greatest asset going in to prime time. Both are perceived highly favourably online, with Cathy having over 45 thousand followers and Vuyo with 47 thousand followers on Twitter.

Mvoko is a former contributing editor at SABC News and actually hosted a prime time news show at the start of 2016. This show was pulled from the air after Mvoko did an entire show centered on the State of Capture report. He left the SABC not too long after as part of the #SABC8 and started freelancing with eNCA earlier this year.

Cathy is a long time eNCA reporter and anchor, occupying the midmorning slot since 2014. During the election that year, Cathy was one of the channel's main reporters from the IEC's elections result centre. The midmorning slot has been where most news breaks in South Africa and Cathy has anchored coverage solo during many major breaking news stories including the Oscar Pistorius trial, protests, and of course, as is now the norm, countless press conferences.

Overall, this is the perfect choice by the channel with both being highly regarded by the public, highly competent at anchoring and coming across with a wonderful screen presence.

Other changes to the channel include longrunning News Night anchor, Jeremy Maggs moving to News Day (1pm, eNCA) solo, with the current news Day team, Shahan Ramkissoon and Michelle Craig moving to Cathy's old 9am to 1pm slot.

Everything else remains unchanged.

RATINGS: Free to air highlights from April 2017

Below are the free to air news highlights for April. Just a reminder that at the start of the month, SABC2 and SABC3 both shifted news programming around as part of a schedule retweak.
  • Xhosa News (SABC1, 7pm): 4.615 million
  • Zulu News (SABC1, 7pm): 4.576 million
  • eNews Direct Headlines (etv, Sunday, 6pm): 2.367 million
  • Afrikaans News (SABC2, 6:30pm):1.373 million
  • Sesotho, Setswana, Sepedi News (SABC2, 8pm): 1.088 million
  • Venda, Tsonga News (SABC2, 5:30pm): 1.019 million
  • English News (SABC3, 6pm):638 978

RATINGS: 24 hour news channels for April

As seen above, here are the audience shares for the 24 hour news channels on DStv. Historically, it was eNCA's Patrick Conroy that took the brag and posted this image, but now that he doesn't manage the channel anymore, the new channel head posted the above private image for everyone to see.

As always, eNCA continues to hold above half of the market share, meaning that out of every two people watching news on DStv, one is watching eNCA. Looking at the comparison table, we can see that eNCA was actually below 50% in the preceding motnh, which is something I don't recall seeing before.

Both ANN7 and SABC News Channel are slowly building an audience as both channels are up quite a bit from a year ago.

However, we can see that though SABC News Channel and ANN7 grew, this growth has not been coming at the expense of eNCA. Instead, the international news and business news channels are suffering instead with all of them down sharply from what they were doing late last year when interest in the American election was high.

What should be most concerning is the absolutely poor performance from local business news channels. When it comes to Al Jazeera or BBC World News, they are okay with having such low viewership because their channels are available all around the world on different platforms to make up for poor performance in one location.

However, neither CNBC Africa or Business Day TV has the same cushion to protect them: DStv viewership is all they have and when no one watches them on DStv, there is no one watching them anywhere in the world.

Tuesday 2 May 2017

Ayanda-Allie Paine back at eNCA

Ayanda-Allie Paine has announced that she will be rejoining eNCA, this time as weekend breakfast anchor.

Paine. who hosted eNCA's weekday morning programme, Morning News Today, left eNCA to take up the position of newsreader at the much wider watched Morning Live (SABC2, SABC News Channel). She left that position in February 2016 for a role at Power FM (I suppose the cool radio station these days) before now announcing her return to eNCA.

This will, in fact, be eNCA's first ever weekend breakfast show as the channel just did one long unbranded rolling news bulletin on weekends with rotating anchors.

The show, which is titled 'Weekend Wake Up' will air both Saturday and Sunday mornings between 7am and 10am.

It is strange that someone as talented as Ayanda will be permanently allocated weekend hours when eNCA still has a massive void to fill during weekday prime time with both Jeremy Maggs and Iman Rappetti leaving the station. Either way, I'm personally very happy to have Ayanda back on screen.

Monday 24 April 2017

Liberty Radio Awards hghlights

Liberty Radio Awards – South Africa


South Africas premier radio awards show, the Liberty Radio Awards (formerly MTN Radio Awards), took place this past weekend. Here are some of the newsy highlights.

Radio 702 and Cape Talk's The Money Show won the award for best Business and Finance Show.

The award in the Field News Reporter category went to Kaya FM's Tunicia Phillips.

The winners in the best News and Actuality Show categories were Inanda FM's Izwe Nezalo (Campus and Community), Lotus FM's Walk the Talk (PBS) and Power FM's Power Update.

The winners for best Newsreader were Vow FM's Katleho Sekhotho (Campus), Hot 91.9 FM's Gladys Sithole, who was formerly a news anchor on ANN7, (Community), Nomsa Mdhluli from SAFM (PBS) and Tara Penny from EyeWitnessNews (Commercial).

Best Radio Documentary went to EyeWitnessNews' Through the Cracks - The Untold Story of Mbuyisa Makhubu.

Ms Cosmo from 5FM won in the category for Traffic Presenter.

Jeremy Maggs of eNCA (and Power FM) was entered into the Hall of Fame.

It was a good evening to be part of the Power FM family as the station won in the categories for Content Producer (Power Update - Neo Leeuw), Daytime show (Power Talk), Sports Show and Station Imaging as well.

To see the full list of winners, including who won Station of the Year, click HERE.

Thursday 13 April 2017

RATINGS: March2016 Free to air Highlights

Below are the peak viewership figures for South Africa's free toair news bulletins:
  • Zulu News (SABC1, 7pm): 4.324million
  • Xhisa News (SABC1, 7pm): 4.181 million
  • eNews Direct Headlines (Sunday 6pm) 2.542 million 
  •  Afrikaans News (SABC2, 6:30pm) 1.334 million
  • Seswati, Setswana, Sepedi news (SABC2, 8pm) 1.215 million
  • Venda, Tsonga News (SABC2, 5:30pm) 928 145
  • English News (SABC3, 6pm) 756 753 

Actuality/Documentary  Highights:
  • Speak Out (SABC2, Thursdays 9:30pm) 2.86 million 
  •  Return of the White Lion (SABC3, Sunday 5:30pm) 715330
  • Feast of the Predators (SABC3, Sunday 5:30pm) 662961
  • Dolphin Army (SABC3, Sunday 5:30pm) 658813

(Remember that SABC3 and SABC2 tweaked their schedules at the start of the month)

Thursday 6 April 2017

eNews Izindaba cancelled

eNews Izindaba
Though etv relaunched two of their free to air satellite channels this past week to much fanfare, not much noise was made about the cancellation of eNews Izindaba, which aired its last bulletin last Friday.


When eKasi+ made way for eExtra, the channel dropped most of its local content in favour of well-dated foreign content, which is going against the grain of what the rest of the industry is doing by increasing local output.

One of the shows that were cut was eNews Izindaba, the only South African-language news bulletin not produced by the SABC.

eNews Izindaba has seen many shifts over its short life span: It started on eKasi+ when that channel started at a time when etv still aired Sotho news in early prime time (and overall still had an appreciation for prime time news). Then etv decided that the Sotho news should be canceled as they decided to shake up their prime-time lineup to make way for a third soap, but moved the Zulu news bulletin over to etv as well which has a larger viewership footprint.

However, due to both the Zulu news bulletin and the moved English news doing badly in the ratings, the Zulu news was moved back to eKasi+ with both the channel and the news bulletin this past week getting canned.

Though producing a single news bulletin is not expensive considering the expensive news gathering operations are already covered by etv's broader news division, pumping out five episodes a week for the entire year does eventually lead to high costs, something which may not be justifiable based on the small footprint of OpenviewHD, coupled of course with the fact that there are no subscription fees to depend on.

Tuesday 4 April 2017

Vuyo Mvoko joins eNCA

The highly talented and experienced former SABC News contributing editor today resurfaced on broadcast news, this time for eNCA.

Mvoko was let go by the SABC last July for speaking out against the news organisation's editorial policy.

With both Jeremy Maggs and Iman Rappetti leaving eNCA's News Night soon, the channel does not have anyone experienced enough in house to fill their roles. Could Mvoko, who previously hosted a prime time news programme on SABC News Channel be filling the void left by them soon?

His current role ateNCA is 'Specialist Reporter,' the same title Karyn Maughn holds.

Various news personalities took to Twitter to congratulate him on the move. Here are some:
Former eNCA host,Eusebius McKaiser:
Former ANN7 anchor, Asanda Magaqa:

Eyewitness News Senior Reporter:

The news, uninterrupted

What happens when tremors are felt in studio whilst live on the air? Your conversation continues uninterrupted of course:


But seriously though, talk about a cool reaction. Makes one sadder thatIman is leaving soon.

Friday 24 March 2017

ANN7 launches Consumer Guard

ANN7 (DStv 405) has announced another new show in the channel's current expansion of current affairs programming, Consumer Guard.

The show will focus on consumer rights and issues relating to that, highlighting consumer rip-offs, market collusion, and price fixing. It aims to inform, educate and give guidance as to what consumers can do to extend the value of their rand.

The weekly show will expose businesses that are colluding within the various industries, making it difficult for consumers to afford basic necessities.

Former Generations actor, Palesa Madisakwane‏ (who has had a rather odd week on social media) will host. She has been anchoring on ANN7 for a few months already.

ANN7 News Editor, Abhinav Sahay says: “On the first episode, the show tackles the issue of cellphone companies and their services. It aims to answer the question 'Are South Africans getting their money's worth when it comes to their cellphone networks?”

Consumer Guard premieres on Saturday afternoons at 2:30pm from March 25th, with repeats on Sunday afternoons at 3:30pm.

SABC3 schedule shakeup: Big news and actuality shifts and cuts

Image result for sabc3
SABC3 this past week announced a new 'autumn schedule' (just anther name for a shakeup) which sees major changes for nearly all the channel's news and actuality programmes. here are the highlights:


The Prime Time News bulletin moves half an hour earlier
The channel's main English news bulletin, Prime Time News with Francis Herd and Peter Ndoro, moves thirty minutes earlier to 6pm. This now moves it out of direct competition with the only other prime-time English news bulletin, etv's eNews Direct.

Though this might disturb the gradual build in audience the bulletin has seen, it is not necessarily bad, in fact its good programming from the SABC: From 5:30pm daily, the SABC will now have at least one news bulletin available on its free to air broadcasts (and takes the English and Afrikaans bulletins out of direct competition with each other) at any given time until 7:30pm. That's two hours of nonstop free to air primetime news cascaded across their three free to air news channels.

One thing we don't know from this change is how it will affect the business news bulletin that currently airs in its slot on SABC News Channel. SABC3's bulletin is just a simulcast of SABC News Channel, which currently airs a business-centric bulletin at 6pm. Whether that simply shifts later or gets canceled all together is not yet known.

This is also not the first shift for the bulletin that used to air at 8pm way back in the day. After an extended period at 7pm, the bulletin was shifted to 6pm as it could no longer compete directly with what at the time was a very highly rated news bulletin on etv (those ratings have absolutely plummeted since being shifted to 6:30pm). The bulletin was then extended for an hour to 7pm, before losing its first 30 minutes again, resulting in it airing in its current 6:30pm slot.

Expresso loses half an hour
 SABC3's breakfast show, Expresso (which just last weekend won Best Variety Show at the SAFTA's), will be losing 30 minutes of air to return back to being a two and a half hour show. However, the half hour being cut is the 6am half hour (to make way for a kiddies block) and not the recently added 8:30am half hour.

This means that Expresso, which once was the first breakfast show on air daily back when it started, going live at 5:30am, will now be the last breakfast show on any South African channel to go on air in the morning. Though that may be considered a negative for a news-centric show, Expresso is not that, they are a laid back chat show and cutting their least profitable half hour is not a bad thing.

Deutsche Welle is back
After silently replacing the German news service's broadcast on SABC2 with SABC News, DW, which is an international news service based in Germany, is back on the air on the SABC, now airing between 11:30pm and 2am daily.

Though it is not bad to have a massive two and a half hours  of fresh news content every evening in a time when the channel is used to airing reruns, airing DW isin contravention of whatever policy the SABC has that allowed it to cancel The Big Debate, which has subsequently moved to etv: That of the SABC not airing news content that it does not have editorial control over.

SABC News reruns
After DW goes off the air, overnights continue with SABC News content. It is uncertain what will happen to the SABC News' overnight feed on SABC2 as it makes no sense for  both channels to be airing the same thing at the same time for over three hours.

Afternoon Express and Real Talk with Anele swap slots
Afternoon Express now gets a slot in the actual afternoon and not the early evening at 4pm while Real Talk with Anele, which does generate a massive amount of social media buzz, now gets the lucrative 5pm slot where it can be sampled by an even larger potential audience.

Trending SA moves earlier, loses Fridays, loses reruns
The channel's relatively late night show, Trending SA, moves half hour earlier to 9:30pm, a timeslot when more people are actually still watching tv, meaning it no longer goes off air at 11pm.
In addition, it loses its Friday night slot, a night when most tv shows have lower viewership in any case.
The show also now completely vacates the 12pm slot, where it has been airing as a rerun since being moved from airing original episodes then. In its place are other reruns and... Hollywood News (why not).

Current Affairs
Special Assignment now moves to Monday's at 9pm, where it can compete with eNCA's Justice Factor for social media buzz (let's be honest, social media buzz, which does not generate cash, is a major factor considered now when scheduling is compiled).
Interface gets canceled completely in favour of celebrity stuff.

Finally, Funatix, the tween day time show that airs when children arein school, is now completely cancelled.

The rest of the channel's changes is just a shuffling of daytime reruns.

2017 SAFTAs: ZANews wins big... again

Image result for zanews safta

The 2017 edition of the SAFTAs took place this past week and, as we are all now used to, SA's only satirical news programme, ZANews Puppet Nation, won big once again.

The categories the show won are:
Best TV Comedy
Best Achievement in Directing - Comedy (Alex Fynn & Johannes Theodorus Vermaak )
Best Achievement in Post Production Sound Design - TV Comedy (Neil Benjamin)
Best Achievement in Art/Production Design - TV Comedy (Catherine Anne Jacot-Guillarmod, Racine Tanya Williams & Simone Rossouw)

With the show consistently receiving recognition for its work, it is surprising that it has not yet jumped to a television channel with a much bigger reach or another channel has not at least attempted to steal them away from StarSat. Also, consider the fact that they produce their show for a DStv audience and not a StarSat audience: They frequently make fun of news programming that is available exclusively on DStv. For example, one of their puppet co-hosts is Justice Malala. He is a personality seen only on eNCA which is available only on DStv so one can't expect the StarSat audience to connect with this character they don't really see too often. 

Yes, they do upload their episodes in their entirety for free on Youtube, but very few people find these episodes as very few know they exist in the first place. 

Other SAFTA highlights include:
 Nobody's Died Laughing winning best documentary film,
ZANews' sister show, Point of Order winning best game show,
SABC3's breakfast show, Expresso winning Best Variety Show, 
50/50 winning Best Magazine Show, 
Special Assignment's 'Spieners' episode beating out two Carte Blanche episodes for Best Current Affairs Actuality Programme

Friday 17 March 2017

Nzinga Qunta joins SABC News Channel

Former ANN7 Prime anchor, Nzinga Qunta is back on our screens in a regular role, now anchoring the SABC News Channel's Midday Report and, by consequence (due to simulcasting), SABC3's News at 1.


She has been in the role since the middle of February but I have only recently been able to confirm the move is not a temporary arrangement.

Since leaving ANN7 back in June 2015, Qunta has become a mother and planned to be a stay at home mom, but as she tweeted today, the news bug bit and she could not resist a return to screens (@NzingaQ: I was but I missed news and life changes 😬).

Nzinga brings SABC News an asset very few other on-air personalities on any news channel have: the ability to organically connect with younger people on social media and cleverly try to convert these tweets to viewers. She engages with her over 26 000 Twitter followers as if she is just another one of them and not some news person just delivering the same news in the same way just on another platform.

Though the 1pm hour is business centric, having such a strong social media user anchoring during the afternoon is an added benefit during hours when the things trending online usually is a direct result of live broadcasts happening during these hours (Parliamentary sessions, press conferences, court proceedings, etc).

Qunta is also a former Channel O presenter, presenting the channel's then flagship show, O-boma from 2007 to 2009 (Remember that show? It feels like a real lifetime ago).  She holds a BA degree from Wits in English Literature and Law.

Both Iman Rappetti and Jeremy Maggs leaving News Night

Image result for jeremy maggs iman rappetti
eNCA has unexpectedly announced that both news anchors of News Night, Senior Anchors Jeremy Maggs and Iman Rappetti, will be leaving the channel's prime time news bulletin, News Night.


The reason for both anchors leaving is that neither wants to work at night anymore. Though prime time is where any journalist wants to be considering its much larger audience, the veteran anchors are no longer willing to work their long days: both are presenters on PowerFM in the morning, then anchors at night.

Rather poetically (or coincidentally), burnout due to working radio and tv is the exact same reason why News Night's first female anchor, Redi Thlabi (then Redi Direko), left the job as well.

In recent months the two have been increasingly taking off days as well. This reached a stage where neither anchors on a Friday night and during the rest of the week it is mostly only one of them on duty.

Maggs leaves the slot after nearly nine years there, while Rappetti leaves after five. The five years that the duo have been together precedes the existence of the country's other two news channels, SABC News Channel and ANN7 and have been the constant in eNCA's lineup tweaks over the past few years, including a name change.

“It has been a heady, tough, rewarding, crazy ride,” says Iman.

“Both Jeremy and Iman have been key to the success of eNCA,” says Channel News Director Mapi Mhlangu. “We thank them for their loyalty, hard work and brilliance in bringing powerful news stories to our screens. This is a big change for the channel and our viewers, but also an opportunity to showcase talent in our newsroom and beyond.”

No word yet on who will replace the duo, but eNCA's bench of good enough anchors is not that deep so if anchors in other slots get the promotion, the channel will still have to look outside the group for new anchors in those slots. (Personally, my bets are on Joanne Joseph and Gareth Edwards, as that reduces disruption on the rest of the schedule and doesn't pull any of the quality reporters  from the field, but let's see).

Their final evening on News Night is expected in May, closer to the channel's birthday.

Thursday 9 March 2017

Supersport Blitz to broadcasst in HD

Image result for supersport blitz
It was announced at the MultiChoice upfronts today that Supersport Blitz, South Africa's only 24/7 sports news channel, will start broadcasting in the high definition format soon.


Thee channel now joins seven other of Supersport's countless channels in broadcasting in High Definition. the switchover will happen later this month.

In addition, on the SuperSport front at least, the broadcaster noted that they will be launching a 24/7 eSports channel that will eventually broadcast domestic eSports tournaments as well, like the big ones held at the rAge expo. eSports is when we watch other people play video games.

UPDATED: ANN7 relaunches Straight Talk (Again)

ANN7 has announced that they will once again be relaunching their long form interview and analysis programme, Straight Talk.

The programme was initially started in 2015 as a replacement for Political Edge, which was a similarly formatted show anchored by Hajra Omarjee. In 2015, Straight Talk was anchored by editor in chief, Moegsien Williams and in 2016 it was anchored by Chelsea Lotz (who has since moved on to become ANN7's Cape Town based reporter).

This year, the show will be anchored by Sifiso Mahlangu, who is the channel's political analyst and also writes for their sister newspaper, The New Age. He holds qualifications in Psychology, Communication, and Political Science.  (He is quite spicy on Twitter too)

Through his  brand of humor and personality, Mahlangu seeks answers to tough question and pulls no punches in getting to the truth and providing a local narrative to South African current affairs and news-makers.

ANN7 News Editor, Abhinav Sahay says: "We are excited about the  revamped Straight Talk show; everyone has a question and Straight Talk will provide the answers.”

Straight Talk launches on ANN7 on Sunday 12 March and airs weekly in the 7pm slot, with repeats :Monday mornings at 7:30am.

Abigail Visagie finishes short in E! Presenter Search

ANN7 anchor, Abigail Visagie, finished in second place in the inaugural E! Presenter Search South Africa competition.

She lost to former Mzansi Insider presenter, Katleho Sinivasan, in the finals of the six-week talent search competition (Not much of a talent 'search' actually considering everyone on the show was already 'found' and at least half famous already). the final challenge was a traditional red carpet interview setup, something Visagie has done at least twice before, and live at that, for ANN7's South African of the Year Awards.

Visagie joins ANN7 anchor, Lauren Janae (Top Actor SA), and former anchor, Mbali Nkosi (Big Brother Mzansi), in competing in other channels' talent contests, doing well, then coming up just short in the end. But if precedence is anything to go by, she will probably get good opportunities due to the positive exposure she has received.

Sinivasan won a year-long contract with E! to be its South African-based correspondent. He will also go on a trip to Hollywood to meet the E! team on that side. His first gig for the channel was today actually, representing E! (which is part of the NBC Universal group) at the Multichoice Upfronts. His first major on-air role will be to cohost E!'s red carpet coverage of the SAFTA Awards later this month with Bonang Matheba.

Picking her chin up after the defeat, Visagie was back anchoring her Express Lunch bulletin today on ANN7. But then again, is it a defeat considering ANN7 is available in more than double the homes that the E! channel is available in and has a higher viewership in South Africa?That and the fact she is on air about fifteen hours a week compared to maybe an hour a week for the E! gig, if that even.

Wednesday 8 March 2017

RATINGS: 2017 State of the Nation Address

The annual State of the Nation Address was delivered by President Zuma on Thursday, 9 February.

SABC2's broadcast, which aired from 17:55 to 22:10 averaged a healthy 2.599 million viewers over the four hours and fifteen minutes. This is above what the channel would normally have averaged in that time period had they aired a traditional prime time lineup.

Though the Address was carried live on etv as well, the Address did not make the cut for that channel's top 20 programmes for the month of February.

South Africa's most watched news channel, eNCA, provided wall to wall coverage on the day. This, coupled with the fact that eNCA and 'Annika Larsen' were trending on Twitter for all the wrong reasons led to that channel pulling a massive  371 151 viewership average from 6pm to 11pm. I cannot back this up, but I do suspect this might be eNCA's highest rated block of programming in the channel's nine-year history.

The State of the Nation Address was broadcast live on SABC2, etv, eNCA, SABC News Channel, ANN7, The Parliamentary Service, CNBC Africa and Islam TV. However, viewership is not publicly available for the smaller broadcasters due to them not making the top 30 broadcasts for DStv during the month.

RATINGS: Free to air news and actuality highlights for February 2017

News bulletins:

  • Xhosa News (SABC1): 4.123 million viewers
  • Zulu News (SABC1): 4.061 million viewers
  • Siswati/Ndebele News(SABC1): 2.459 million viewers
  • eNewsDirect Headlines Sunday (etv): 2.166 million viewers
  • Afrikaans News (SABC2): 1.802 million viewers
  • Sesotho/Setswana/Sepedi News (SABC2): 1.311 million viewers
  • English News (SABC3): 893 617 viewers

Actuality programming:
  • Speak Out (SABC2): 2.586 million viewers
  • No other actuality show (Special Assignment, Checkpoint, etc) made the top 20 of their respective channels.
Documentaries:
  • Now or Never  (SABC1): 2.848 million viewers
  • African River Goddess (SABC2): 1.265 million viewers
  • The Last Lioness (SABC3): 788 111 viewers
  • The Cheetah Diaries (SABC3): 726 762 viewers
  • Saving Rhino (SABC3): 588 471 viewers

Stray observations:
  • Thanks to Generations airing on SABC3 due to AFCON, Top Billing experienced an extreme spike in viewership due to Generations viewers staying behind, pulling nearly triple of Top Billing's usual audience (usually in the 600 000 range), with 1.6 million viewers).high-qualityquality lead ins due to SABC1's shows being broadcast on other channels led to some rather weird audience retentions. For example, by having Skeem Saam air before it, 7de Laan had a rather good month. Who woould have known those two shows could have audience overlap? 
  • The Metro FM Music Awards performed well once again, attracting an average of 4.17 million viewers  over its three hour broadcast on a Saturday night.



Saturday 4 March 2017

etv this past week revealed at their upfronts that their eKasi+ (OpenviewHD 105) channel will be rebranded as eExtra.  

The new channel will focus entirely on international content, only holding reruns of etv's three soap operas as its only local content. No word yet on what will happen to the eNews Izindaba news bulletin that currently airs on the channel

This means that etv's venture to continuously grow their investment in local content is inexplicably over. The reason I describe this change of direction as inexplicable is because the large amount of local content was doing so well in the ratings and continuously generated positive buzz for the channel.

Also, by producing a large amount of local content themselves, they could rerun these shows nonstop on their second tier channels, without having to now pay the license fees for rights of foreign shows they can now only air in limited windows.

The reason for them canceling the local talk shows was acceptable though: the celebrity guests would appear on all talk shows saying the same thing so producing talk shows were no longer producing compelling tv.

The scaling back of local dramas in favour of three-year-old American shows was never explained.

etv does not seem to realise times have changed. People without access to pay tv will now easily pirate foreign content they want to watch rather than wait three years for etv to air a show well after its international (and social media) buzz has died.

When eKasi+ launched, etv were, admittedly, producing local shows for that channel at a loss: They were expensive to produce with a very small audience due to the then small footprint of OpenviewHD. Since then, the satellite platform has grown greatly, meaning producing local shows exclusively for eKasi+ would now have been profitable due to improved economies of scale.

The eExtra channel will however more closely omplement the etv schedule. For example, when etv airs programming targeting a female audience, eExtra will air content targeting males, like the literally ten year old series, Burn Notice.

eKasi+ terminates on March 31st with eExtra going live the next day.
(details courtesy of tvsa)

Thursday 2 March 2017

ANALYSIS: M-Net shuffles series channels... AGAIN

M-Net today announced it is once again 'streamlining' its content offering. I will provide analysis on this (and before that, a summary of the changes) but first a look at how things are now.


Currently
M-Net runs six series channels currently:
First run (targeting premium subscribers)
  • M-Net: The long-running main channel showing general mainstream series, mainly from US broadcast networks (free to air). Also airs limited original domestic programming targeting mainly English-speaking white viewers.
  • M-Net Edge: The channel showing more serious and darker shows, mainly from US cable networks (pay tv).
  • Vuzu Amp: A mixture of the two but with content targeting more young adults and those part of urban culture. Also features limited original domestic programming targeting mainly a younger black audience.
Second run (Targeting Compact/Extra subscribers)
  • M-Net City: A crime-centric channel with content being funneled from mainly from M-Net Edge, but a few shows from M-Net as well.
  • Vuzu: A youth-centric series channel funneling feature content from Vuzu Amp and comedic content from M-Net. 
Third run (Targeting Family subscribers)
  • M-Net Family: Essentially an everything else channel- It airs talk shows that do not air on other channels, it shows second run content from the first run channels that do not fit on M-Net City or Vuzu (eg Masterchef) and it airs third run content from M-Net City and Vuzu that M-Net still has rights to.
Changes
  • M-Net Edge is shutting down completely. (Apparently) All of its content is being shifted to M-Net to once again turn that channel into a super channel basically, with new content being seen on M-Net from 6pm to midnight every day from Monday to Saturday and on Sunday, from 3:30pm to whenever the second movie premiere ends after midnight.
  • M-Net Family is shutting down completely with Vuzu being given to Family subscribers to make up for the loss
  • [Oh, and the movie channel, M-Net Showcase, is shutting down too]
Analysis
The thing is, no matter how hard M-Net tries to spin this about giving subscribers value, they need to come to a point where they can be open and say that this is a cost-cutting measure. That's it. No value is getting created at all.

Real value
No real value is being created for subscribers. In fact, real value is being cut from subscribers (I use the term 'real value' to describe the cash value M-Net spends on purchasing content). Here's why: Currently M-Net Edge airs new programming from 7pm to 10pm daily. When the new format takes effect, M-Net Edge's content will only air from 9:30pm to midnight on the redeveloped M-Net, a loss of thirty minutes of new content a day, everyday totaling 2.5 hours in the week and a few more hours on weekends when the channel also aired new content.

In addition, the content that aired before 7pm and after 10pm were mainly older 'library content,' which though may have been old, still cost M-net money to air, money they no longer going to need to spend, even though the channel would not call this cost cutting. 

With M-Net Family now eliminated, M-Net now no longer needs to pay license fees to air content in the third window anymore, providing them with more cost cutting opportunities. 

Perceived value
I use this term to refer to the value existing/created in the viewer's head. Firstly the loss of three channels is already considered a loss of value for subscribers, even though the losses will mainly be repeats and reruns. A mere reduction in the number of channels, no matter what channel it was, feels like a loss to someone who will still be paying the same subscription fee.

However, though subscribers complain about repeats, to many, repeats are a convenience. After all, not everyone has a PVR and even those that do might not have the opportunity to record everything they would like to. Try to imagine how someone without a PVR even keeps up with all the nonstop new content for the entire day. Instead of watching sport or going out on a Saturday evening, as most people do, these viewers would now be forced to stay home merely to watch a show they watch now that it airs new episodes on this inconvenient day.

Or consider the inconvenience when the show you have been watching at 7:30pm on M-Net Edge now airs at 10pm on M-Net, forcing you to make changes to your lifestyle if you still want to keep up with the show (This is a real example).

Having so many shows on one channel also leads to viewers overlooking a lot of shows they might have found on an easier schedule. Not finding shows as frequently as they would have reduces their perceived value of what they are paying for. 

Channel drift
"Channel drift or network decay is the gradual shift of a television network away from its original programming, to either target a newer and more profitable audience, or to broaden their viewership by including less niche programming" -Wikipedia

When Vuzu started as a single channel, it aimed to be a youth-centric premium channel with a lot of live and taped domestic original series. Then Mzansi Magic started and M-Net shifted its focus of domestic original series to that channel and Vuzu became a youth-centric premium channel. Then Vuzu Amp started and Vuzu became a youth-centric channel.

Now M-Net Family ends and Vuzu becomes a channel. Shows like The Doctors and Masterchef airs only on M-Net Family in the second window and with Vuzu picking up M-Net Family's load, these shows would have to move to Vuzu. Now imagine the voice of Vuzu, Siabonga Ngwekazi, having to narrate promos for these shows now that they on Vuzu, which in turn now loses any identity it has. 

Impatience? 
What makes M-Net fundamentally different from a tv channel like etv? While etv's life depends on its viewership to bring in ad revenue, M-Net simply needs to keep DStv subscribers paying their subscription (not necessarily watching). So while etv has to constantly adapt or die in order to generate ad revenue, M-Net has the luxury of being able to allow something to grow with time. 
However, M-Net just doesn't seem to be able to keep their hands off their channels. Here's some fundamental channel changes M-Net has made this side of 2010 alone:
  • January 2010: 'Refocus' M-Net 101 as the place to be for premium entertainment. This includes yanking shows from M-Net Series like American Idol to bolster its schedule, leaving people on smaller bouquets like Compact without first run shows they have always had access to. This reinvestment in the channel also sees an expanded local content slate including two Carte Blanche spin-offs on the channel. 
  • circa 2011: M-Net removes most local content from M-Net 101, keeping only The Wild (soap), Idols and Carte Blanche. English local content will be focussed on Mzansi Magic only.
  • July 2013: Split the M-Net Series channel into three series channels: Showcase for premium series, Reality for second run series, Zone for reruns. Remember those few shows Compact subscribers had yanked away? Well, now an entire channel's worth of programming was taken away from them, being given the second rate Zone in return. Also, a lot of first run reality series on Vuzu was taken away to fill the Reality channel.
  • October 2014: Realising that they launched tv channels with absolutely no identities, M-Net Showcase and Reality are pulled from the air. Viewers that were invested in shows on those channels were forced to watch seasons end with up to four hour long episodes stuffed down their throats on a single evening so that the channels could close (This is repeating itself now in 2017). In their place, M-Net launched two channels that are actually well branded: M-Net Edge and Vuzu Amp. Residual programming (like talk shows) is shifted to the tv channel, Magicworld. 
  • April 2015: M-Net Series Zone is replaced with M-Net City, though content remains largely the same initially (M-Net City goes through countless changes before settling on its current format).
  • July 2015: M-Net Family replaces Magicworld, keeping the talk shows and telenovelas, but now becomes M-Net's first third window channel. 
  • 2016: M-Net starts to reintroduce local programming to M-Net 101 after discontinuing local programming on the channel, previously only keeping legacy series, Idols and Carte Blanche. 
  • April 2017: Like in January 2010, M-Net now plans to refocus on M-Net 101, ending M-Net Edge and M-Net Family. Viewers of certain shows will now once again be forced to watch up to a brutal four hours worth of episodes at a time in order to complete their series. 
As seen here, M-Net never sticks with a programming strategy long enough to see it succeed but restructures in what now seems an annual practice that they blame on channels underperforming. How can a channel perform well if it does not even get enough time to do so? This does not even include the countless changes made to the M-Net Movies bouquet of channels that loses now yet another channel. 

All these changes come into effect April first, which coincides with the date on which the price of DStv Premium rises by R30 per month. So imagine that: Literally paying more and literally getting less.  

If you would like me to do more articles like this analysing the industry, let me know. 

Saturday 25 February 2017

SABC journalists robbed while covering xenophobic protests

@Sipho_stuurman (twitter)


An SABC crew who were covering yesterday's pro-xenophobic march (There's no other name for it) in Attridgeville, Pretoria were robbed by the protestors who were also looting stores mainly owned by foreign nationals.

The reason for the robbery? The protestors  said they do not trust the media.

The South African National Editors Forum (SANEF) stated that they urged the police to arrest the protestors that robbed the SABC crew of their equipment and cellphones, among other things.

Chriselda  Lewis, who was also covering the protests for the SABC, tweeted that they managed to 'negotiate' the tv camera back and the entire crew continued providing comprehensive coverage on the protest action.

[It was really beautiful actually to see how the crew managed the incident: as soon as all was over, they continued  excellently covering the event without inserting themselves into the story for a moment to shine]

Thursday 23 February 2017

CNBC Africa goes widescreen, opens Rwandan studio

CNBC Africa (DStv 410, available online) has finally joined all other news channels, and the twenty-first century by broadcasting their content using widescreen signaling.


This means that viewers no longer have to see the channel's picture squashed, as it has been for years. Admittedly, the channel's picture quality is better now as well and is more 'colourful' (the channel's picture has always seemed a bit grey) and crisp.

In addition, viewers will now also notice that the channel's schedule has been tweaked and streamlined, making it easier to find programming especially during and after prime time when the schedule was rather messy.

Last week CNBC Africa also opened its latest studio, one in Rwanda. The channel has maintained a presence in the country since February last year, covering events like the World Economic Forum on Africa from there.

Roberta Naicker, Managing Director of the ABN Group said: “This television studio in the Kigali Convention Centre marks yet another step towards our ongoing commitment to not only Rwanda, but East Africa, and in telling the African economic story from all corners of the continent. As the channel celebrates its 10th Anniversary on June 1, we are excited to be able to add this important presence on the front line of one of the most high-tech convention center’s to our content offering.”

Rwandan Minister of Finance, Claver Gatete, will be cutting the ribbon to open the second CNBC Africa television studio in Rwanda.

Wednesday 22 February 2017

Sky News adds Subtitles

Image result for sky news
Sky News has become the first news channel broadcast in South Africa to offer live Hearing Impaired subtitles.


Though many other channels in the M-Net suite offers Hearing Impaired subtitles, none of them offers these subtitles over live programming like Idols, making Sky News the first broadcaster to do that as well.

As can be expected when someone has to live-type the dialogue on screen, the subtitles do exhibit a rather noticeable lag compared to the live broadcast, but for the hearing impaired community, having the ability to watch and keep up with broadcast news must be a welcomed addition to their programming.