Nikiwe Bikitsha has left eNCA

eNCA Senior Anchor, Nikiwe Bikitsha, has signed off for the final time this past Friday, February 28th. She broke the news herself earlier in the week. There had been no rumblings of her leaving and in  the past few months she even gor promoted to anchor eNews Prime Time in addition to her anchoring duties on eNCA.

Nikiwe Bikitsha joined what was then known as the e News Channel on the 11th of May 2009 as the female co anchor on their flagship broadcast, News Night, replacing outgoing anchor, Redi Direko, who stepped down citing burnout. She joined eNCA from CNBC Africa and before then, was a breakfast host on SAFM. She was also a commentator for the Mail and Guardian, though she returned a few moths ago. 

In 2012 she took a leave of absence from the eNews Channel to take up the prestigious Hubert Humphrey Fellowship. This left co anchor Jeremy Maggs anchoring the show solo for well over a week, before the channel decided to move then breakfast show anchor Iman Rappetti into the slot temporarily (prompting Ayanda-Allie Paine to fill in her slot). However, the duo received such warm reviews for their on screen chemistry, that they remained the News Night pair since. 

Upon returning well educated from her scholarship, Nikiwe Bikitsha found herself working for a channel that has relaunched and changed its name from e News Channel to eNCA since she left, with a new anchor in what used to be her slot, and the addition of exciting new anchor Eleni Giokos meant that every slot from 6am to 9pm was choc-a-bloc with two anchors, leaving no place for Nikiwe. During her first few months back, the newly returned "Senior Anchor," as she was tagged on screen found herself without a slot, instead doing 'special reports.' However, soon the likes of Ayanda Allie-Paine, Eleni Giokos and Mac Moleli all left the channel, and she was given the 4pm slot in what was yet another channel lineup shuffle.

Nikiwe just never seemed happy in this slot to me, always coming across as dry and uninterested in the new slot, a far cry of the super enthusiastic and full of energy anchor she had been just a year or so prior before leaving for the scholarship. I often thought it might just be the format of a solo anchored late afternoon slot that was just dull, but whenever JoAnne Josephs filled in for, JoAnne seemed to make the slot feel so exciting. 

Nikiwe was also recently promoted to anchor eNews Prime Time after anchor Sally Burdett received a promotion in the group to head of anchors (which I must say seems to come across as a very messy job these days). She seemed dry anchoring the most watched Englsih news Bulletin in the country as well. 

Nikiwe most recently co anchored special coverage of the events surrounding Nelson Mandela's death. However, now that I look back, it is really interesting that she was not used more effectively during the SONA coverage (actually, not used at all outside of a normal role) which could actually be read as a sign of her leaving.

Nikiwe was studying when she joined the channel, studied while there and says she will study now that she is leaving (along with working in business and doing freelance work). Nothing like someone always bettering themselves. Here's to Nikiwe, once upon a time one of the fastest rising stars in local news.