eNews Prime Time is by far the most watched English News Bulletin in the country, more than doubling its only competiton's (SABC 3's hour long bulletin which starts at 18:30) numbers on a daily basis .
However, it seems as if eTV and eNCA are really not giving much attention to what is definitly its most watched bulletin of the day.
As you can see, the picture in this article is that of FORMER anchor Sally Burdett which I found on etv's official website. This was the only relevant picture I could find as others show even older anchors and older logos. [If you do not know, Sally left her position as eNews Prime Time anchor to take up the position of Story Editor & Head of Anchors at eNCA since th latter half of this year. She has done the odd anchor job on eNCA every now and then, like anchoring the evening of Nelson Mandela's passing].
However, since she left this position to become head of anchors, there really has been no solid anchor in this slot.
Nikiwe Bikitsha, who left News Night two years ago to complete a 10 month leadership,academic and professional development programme known as the Fulbright Hubert Humphrey fellowship in the U.S for mid career professionals deemed leaders in their field. However when she she did not return to News Night (Where Iman Rappetti hold the co anchor title now), sh instead picked up the 4 o'clock to 6 slot and later added e News Prime Time to it as well.
First question: Is it normal that the anchor of your most watched show is someone just doing double duty after another show?
It doesn't end there. As this well learned person, Nikiwe is the group's go to anchor for on location reporting, having reported from the Eastern Cape during the period of Mandela's passing, Pretoria for Politics and Davos for the World Economic Forum. This then leads to the obvious problem that now you have two shows that no longer have an anchor, e News Prime Time and the 4pm-6pm slot on eNCA. Usually, Jo-Anne Josephs filled in on both (she is, after all a former prime time anchor at SABC 3 before joining the then e News Channel).
But it doesn't end there. JoAnne these days are seen more on her actual slot (9am-1pm) alongside Gareth Edwards, leaving 7 pm empty, again.
On Tuesday, Jremy Maggs filled in at 4pm (and eventually did double duty on his usual slot to 9pm). However, due to obvious reasons, he cannot be on e News Prime Time. So who comes in? Junior anchor (and occasional fill in at 4pm or mid morning on eNCA) Duduzile Ramela. I have nothing against her, but I do think that it should NOT be a junior anchor anchoring your most watched show.
Wednesday was another story (because these people are really pushing limits). Cape Town did Prime Time (News Day's Andrew Barnes anchoring this time). As you know Cape Town only does the weekend, public holidays and late night news on eTV (and News Day on eNCA, simulcast for 30 minutes on eTV).
No comments:
Post a Comment