SABC News Channel launches 'On The Record' with Vuyo Mvoko

"And a very warm welcome to the very first episode of our new show, On the Record." Those were the first words of SABC News' Contributing Editor, Vuyo Mvoko, welcoming viewers to his new show this past Monday night, January 11th.

On The Record aims to go beyond the day's headlines to bring viewers a select few stories that viewers simply have to know, debates, as well as interviews and profiles with people viewers ought to know.

The show has a decent format: start with a few news stories with Mvoko drawing a narrative in between links as well as providing commentary, none of which seems to be scrolling on a teleprompter. Not being a traditional news bulletin, the program has the luxury to linger longer on certain news stories, creating insight viewers would otherwise not have received during a regular bulletin.

After the first segment details the main news story of the day, the second segment features the show's focus story of the day, which is something discussed in with on air guests. The premiere episode featured a simply explosive debate around the recent race issues experienced in the country. It featured author, Eusebius McKaizer (Run, Racist, Run), rights activist, Ernst Roets (Afriforum)as well as Andile Mgxithama (Black First, Land First).

Following the lengthy debate, the premiere episode aired an interview with the current ANC Youth League President.

With the launch of On The Record, Your World gets cut down to only two hours, starting now at 10pm. Both shows use the same studio though.

The show is also not Mvoko's first attempt at a show on the channel as he has previously experimented with different formats in the past.

One The Record with anchor Vuyo Mvoko airs weekdays from 9pm to 10pm on SABC News Channel (DStv 404).

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.

SABC News Tweaks Schedule

The SABC News Channel, DStv 404, has yet again made changes to the channel's schedule, this time being the late night hours that get a much needed shuffle, at least in my opinion.

The main change that took effect this past Monday, October 14, was the shifting of its 11pm late night news program, Your World, to the 9pm hour on the lineup, effectively pushing the repeats of African-language news back by an hour.

The show also underwent some somewhat minor tweaks to coincide with the timeslot change. Firstly, and most strikingly, the show is now broadcast live instead of on a tape-delay as had been done previously.

The show also changed studios, dropping the studio that is used for most of the SABC News Channel's programming live Sports Live and Newsroom and instead now originates from the studio used for the African-language bulletins that are broadcast on SABC 1.

Another major change undertaken by the show is that it now has a new anchor, the same person that anchors the channel's News @ 8 programme.

This then means that yet again long time SABC news anchor, Mahendra Raghunath, will find himself without a news bulletin o anchor as Your World had previously been anchored by him during the week.

Overall, I feel this is very smart counter programming on the part of the SABC, the second most watched news channel in the country,  to add live news in the 9pm not too long after eNCA, the most watched news channel in the country, completely dropped a live general news bulletin in the 9pm hour. This is a sure way of attracting viewers in that hour that would like to see local news but cannot find it anywhere else (ANN7 has Africa Tonight in the 9pm half-hour).