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.

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.

Abigail Visagie next ANN7 anchor to enter another channel's "Presenter Search"

ANN7's lunch time anchor, Abigail Visagie, is the channel's next anchor that will be taking time off to participate in a presenter search competition from another broadcaster, E!.


The talent search show, hosted by Andile Ncube and judged by Terry Pheto, is not much of a 'presenter search' at all. Instead, it yet again takes established domestic tv personalities and treats them as if they are new to an industry where they have worked in, all in the name of maybe getting noticed by a foreign broadcaster.

 [This and the TLC Presenter Search makes the whole local industry seem cheap the way big South African celebrities are willing to do anything for a small role on a tv channel owned by a foreign broadcaster, even though the show they will be presenting is going to be seen by a much smaller audience than they used to and not seen abroad at all]

Other local celebrities that will be making themselves look cheap on the show include Mosa Kaiser (actor), Katleho Sinivasan (who is a presenter on the country's biggest channel, SABC1, but would rather be on a small foreign-owned channel like E!), Danine Naidoo and Ayanda Nhlapo (who were presenters on [ED] before DStv pulled the plug on that channel), Sian Moses and others.

Prior to Visagie, ANN7 anchor Lauren Jenae was a contestant on BET's Top Actor reality show. Though Visagie is a decent anchor, her and other anchors that use ANN7 as a platform to become a 'mainstream celebritiy' instead of a platform to get to a bigger journalistic platform are really hurting the channel as it attempts to build a reputation in the domestic news industry.

It is unclear whether Visagie will continue to anchor on ANN7 while the show airs (I have reached out to the channel).

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.

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.

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.

ANN7 to relaunch BizSense as BizPulse

ANN7 (DStv 405) today announced that its soon to be a year old business show, BizSense, will be relaunched as BizPulse.

Along with the rebrand comes the announcement of the appointment of a new anchor of the business-centric news bulletin, Clive Ramathibela-Smith. He takes over from ANN7 Prime anchor, Sindy Mabe, who has been anchoring the bulletin since Stevie B left the channel earlier this year.

Clive is a seasoned market and investment analyst who combines his peculiar financial knowledge to bridge the gap of business in a democratic South Africa. At 31, Clive brings a youthful twist to the traditionally old and grey business scene. With his signature greeting halaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaala, he is likely to introduce an emphatic, precise and inspiring perspective to business coverage.

From what I have seen, Clive is similar to Richard Quest: well informed but entertaining as well. He is not entirely new to ANN7 either. He has been calling in to BizSense to give a daily market wrap.


ANN7 Editor in Chief, Moegsien Williams commented: “BizPulse is a practical and Informative show that redefines the business world. I am excited about the show and we intend to add context, perspective, and personality to our business coverage that will help our viewers tremendously”.



BizPulse airs on ANN7 Mondays to Fridays at 8pm.

Michael Appel leaves ANN7 for eNCA

For the first time since its inception, a major on-air talent has left ANN7 for another tv broadcaster, with Michael Appel leaving the organisation for eNCA.

Michael has been with ANN7 since inception and has really been one of the channel's cornerstones, playing a pivotal role in covering some of the major news stories over these last three years, including rolling coverage of the Oscar Pistorius trial. Coverage of that trial led to Appel being featured quite prominently in the highly buzzed about documentary based on the trial by the UK's ITV.


Michael has really been one of the on air reporters that have grown with their time at ANN7. Prior to being part of the channel, he worked at the channel's sister newspaper, The New Age.

Michael's loss will be a huge blow to ANN7. He, along with Keldon Ongmu have been the channel's two most reliable reporters and were the only constant at the channel given all the changes that they experience.

He now joins eNCA, who slowly seems to be hiring quite a few established journalists these days to reinforce an already strong lineup.

ANN7 starts live streaming channel on Youtube

ANN7 has started livestreaming the channel's 24/7 feed as seen on DStv on Youtube.

It becomes the first general news channel in the country to do so, but both business news channels (CNBC Africa and Business Day TV) have been doing so for a while already. In addition, SABC News Channel livestreams certain programmes on youtube but not the entire channel.

The livestream can be found at the 'ANN7 TV' account. I am told that the channel will be using this Youtube account temporarily whilst it sorts out issues with their main Youtube account.

The channel continues to livestream from their website as well, but the media player used there is less efficient than Youtube and has compatibility issues with certain mobile devices.

Viewership on the livestream tends to peak during the work day (when everyone uses their workplace's wifi, I see you) and declines at night hen everyone is home and has access to their DStv decoders.

Chante Jantjies leaves ANN7

Earlier this month, the once youngest news anchor on all of South African television, Chante Jantjies, left ANN7 (DStv 405).

Chante, who has been with ANN7 since inception, is a former Miss Teen Universe (and Miss Teen SA) and now has her sights set on the main pageant title, Miss SA.

Whilst at ANN7, the former (but again current) beauty queen has filled various roles [and it has been an absolute pleasure to watch her grow as a news anchor/reporter]. Her first structured anchoring slot was the weekday 9am-11am slot. At the start o 2015 she was moved to weekend breakfast as to better accomodate her studies, before more recently taking up the role of the lunch time anchor. In addition, late last year she added Newsroom Live to her schedule, a news bulletin that e.tv tried to duplicate with eNews Direct.

On Express Lunch and Newsroom Live, Abigail Visagie takes over anchoring duties, which leaves Peter van Onselen as solo anchor of Vuka Africa once again. Abigail is now also the last of the anchors ANN7 hired and trained at inception that still has a weekday slot and is sill with the channel.

ANN7 is profitable, and other highlights from Oakbay's results

Oakbay Investments, a major shareholder in Infinity Media (which in turn wholly owns ANN7), yesterday released their financial results for the year ended 29 February 2016. Below are highlights from the investment firm's media holdings' performance.

Firstly, and most notably when it comes to editorial policy, the media release states that, "the position of TNA (and by virtue, ANN7) is supportive of government, whilst remaining editorially independent and scrutinising of the ruling party." This must be the first time the organisation has publicly announced that they have that particular slant when it comes to covering government, even though it is basically open knowledge.

Later in the media release the following is stated (draw your own conclusions): "The pro-government stance and regional focus of TNA contrasts with the urban bias and Opposition-supporting focus of most other daily newspapers."

ANN7, which is the third most watched news channel on the DStv platform, boasts 2.3 million monthly viewers.

ANN7 and the New Age's Cadet Academy helps to develop the skills of approximately 40 young journalists a year, nothing wrong there. [Quite nice actually especially in an industry where it is hard to get a foot in the door]

Collectively, ANN7 and The New Age have created 783 jobs in the country.

Alo, they have contributed a combined R275.6 million in revenue to Oakbay's performance for the year, roughly 10% of the group's overall revenue.

Then there is the controversial topic of government's high ad spend on the two platforms. R78.53 million of ANN7's and The New Ages ad revenue is from government. In other words, roughly a quarter of their revenue came from government advertising. This is approximately 9% of government's total ad spend.

The future seems exciting for ANN7 as the channel plans to aggressively hire new talent to increase their presence from being in three provinces to being in six.

In addition, ANN7 is planning on launching a radio station based on the fact that radio is still extremely popular in the country.

ANN7 could, would, probably will have new owners by year end

The controversial Gupta family today (rather unexpectedly) announced that they will be selling all their ownership stakes in their South African businesses. Among these is a stake in Infinity Media, which runs ANN7 (and national newspaper, The New Age).


Currently, Oakbay Investments, which is the Gupta's investment arm, owns a 35% stake in Infinity Media. Mabengela Investments, which owns a 21% investment in the company, is owned and ran by friends and associates of the Gupta family, including Duduzane Zuma. (The rest of Infinity Media's owners is made up of ANN7's managers and a 35% stake owned by an Indian media conglomerate which also owns Zee World).

The family hopes to divest from the country by the end of the year and say they are in talks with international investors about purchasing their business interests.

The Guptas' stake in Infinity Media will most likely be sold indirectly when Oakbay is sold, though the possibility remains that the media house could be spun off on its own from investors that are not interested in taking over a newspaper and tv news channel, both of which have struggling brands.

Both ANN7 and The New Age are going to struggle in the coming year when it comes to ad revenue (as if they have not already been struggling). Most companies that advertise through the two avenues are either Gupta-owned or are owned by associates of the Gupta family, if not government agencies.

That in itself would deter investors who obviously do not want to invest in businesses looking at declining revenue streams. When you purchase a media house, one of the bigger things your are actually purchasing is the brands and the brand loyalty. After all, it is easier to start a newspaper than it is to build a loyal base. In this case, both have been accused of favouring certain individuals politically, proven to infringe upon workers rights, and have small market shares, among others, all factors that could chase investors away.

The next few months just unexpectedly became interesting.

[Persoanlly, I hope ANN7 gets owners that breathe new life into the channel. Though they continue to invest in young talent, they do seem to be plateauing and new, exciting leadership might just be what they need to break the next ceiling]

ANN7 South African of the Year Awards' judges revealed

ANN7 today announced the judges for the channel's third annual South African of the Year Awards. The judges come from all spheres of society and are considered icons in their respective industries.

• Basetsana Kumalo (Philanthropist and media mogul)
• Brian Baloyi (Former goalkeeper for the national soccer team)
• Sophie Ndaba (Former actress on popular soap, Generations)
• Sipho 'Hotstix' Mabuse (Musician)
• DJ Sbu (TV personality, radio presenter, musician, business man, youth leader and CNBC Africa presenter)
• Mantombi Makhumbele (Writer, journalist and fashion blogger)
• Carla Viktor (Miss Earth 2015)

As always, these judges will not choose the winner of the main category, South African of the Year, which will still be viewer voted. 

The ANN7 South African of the Year Awards takes place November 25th at the Ticket Pro Dome.

ANN7 is the 2nd most watched news channel for the first time ever

For the first time since the start of the three news channel system in 2013, ANN7 was the second most watched news channel on the DStv platform.

The channel pulled ahead of the SABC News Channel for the week of 8 August to 14 August 2016.

The road has been very rough for the Infinity Media channel, facing many behind the scenes problems as they grew. At certain points over the past three years, the channel has even fallen to fourth place behind Sky News.

Interestingly, all three the channel's most watched programmes (seen in the image above) are weekend recap shows, showing that viewers must really like that (and it explains why the channel produces so many of them).

On the victory, ANN7 original, Abigail Visagie, tweeted, "YASSS!!! I've been there since the very beginning and I'm so proud of our growth! #TeamANN7 the future is ours!"

[Another thing we can deduce from the graphic is that since ANN7 was number 2 for the first time after the elections, SABC News was still number two on election day]

Election day broadcast plans: ANN7

ANN7, along with the other domestic news channels, will be going with wall-to-wall election coverage.

On election day (August 3rd), the channel's entire broadcast day will be branded as 'SA Decides,' which is the name of the channel's running election programme.

As has been the focus of SA Decides, the channel's focus will continue to be on on the ground reporting, with the nine regioinal SA Decides teams all being deployed to each province's respective Regional Results Center.

In addition, the channel's main anchoring will be broadcast from their usual studio in Midrand as well as the main results center in Pretoria. Because South Africa still takes a while to count votes, the channel will continue coverage from this center for the rest of the week as well.

The channel will also be live overnight on Wednesday. The usual anchors will anchor extended hours with Sindy Mabe doing her first ever prime time election night coverage.

ANN7 is available on all DStv bouquets on channel 405, streamed live at ann7com

ANN7 announces 2016 South African of the Year Awards

ANN7 today announced the launch of the channel's 2016 South African of the Year Awards campaign, with the theme of 'Reflection and Progression.'

Going against tradition of holding the event around the time of the channel's birthday, this yeard edition will be held in November again at the Ticketpro Dome.

The SATY awards categories have been tweaked a bit for 2016 and are as follows:
Music Artist of the Year
Personality of the Year ( TV/Radio/ Film)
Business Innovator of the Year
Sportsperson of the Year
Conservationist of the Year
Youth Leader of the Year
South African of the Year
A Lifetime Achievement award will also be made

Public nominations will be open from 13 July 2016- 05 August 2016. A group of panellists will shortlist 5 finalists from all the nominees in each of the categories. Viewers will have an opportunity to vote for the finalists within the respective categories and the winners will be announced on the evening of the awards.

The Awards' companion show, I Am South African, will also return from August through November (probably to avoid clashing with SA Decides, which shares its timeslot). No host has been announced yet.

ANN7 adds new weekend sports show to schedule

ANN7's marketing Twitter account (the only one of its kind in the country) today tweeted that the channel will be launching a new weekend sports show this weekend, The Beuatiful Game.

The show, which will look at Soccer news from South Africa and abroad, will be anchored by current weekend breakfast show anchor, Liezle Wilson, Tholakele Mnganga, a sports journo at PowerFM, and Lenn Yarmolenko.

The broadcast times of the show is odd though.  The morning broadcast is live at 10:30am, but it then gets repeated at 9:30pm when it will be previewing games that have aired already.

The show joins ANN7's other sports shows, the weekday GameOn! and the weekend Weekend Sports.

ANN7 without a programming guide: Does the guide even matter?

So ANN7's electronic programming guide on dstv.com and DStv' iPlate is finally back today after a week without it, but in the end, was it really ever missed?

A television channel, regardless of genre, without a programming guide is expected to rate poorly as viewers struggle to find their way around the schedule, yet ANN7 has trended positively on Twitter more times this week than I can ever recall (excluding SATY weekends). These were trends for reporting news and not trends for negative things at the channel.

This must mean that viewers are still watching the channel, even more than before if it is trending, so what gives?

A news channel's programming guide alerts viewers to what the different news bulletins are that are shown on the screen. When you watch CNNi (DStv 401) for example, if you tune into Quest Means Business at 10pm CAT daily, you expect a business news show with a relaxed tone hosted by Richard Quest from a home-like studio and editorially based in New York. However, when you tune into Connect The World at 5pm, you expect to see an international news bulletin with a Middle Eastern perspective from a newsy studio and editorially produced from Abu Dhabi.

However, when you tune into any programme on one of the local news channels, the look and feel of every news bulletin is exactly the same. The studio setup is the same. The music is the same. The editorial decisions are made by the same people for the full 24 hours of the day. There is really no difference between eNCA's News Night and the mid morning news slot other than the anchors. The same can be said for ANN7 and SABC News Channel.

So, without a programming guide, ANN7 was in fact making things easier for viewers, especially casual ones, who might struggle to navigate between shows like 'News' and 'Newsroom,' even though they are essentially the same, other than for anchors. Though ANN7 has many show names, the only three shows that are essentially different from anything else are SA Decides, GameOn! and Newsroom Live.

Sometimes simplicity is the best way to attract casual viewers.