From the first of October 2014, how many hours of live news would you expect to find on eNCA between 9pm and 6am? Answer: only one.
Yes, South Africa's most watched news channel will only have one hour of live news after Newsnight ends at 9pm.
This is partially because of the introduction of eNCA Moneyline, the new 9pm business show starting on October 1st. The other reason is that the channel will now be repeating the premiere episode of their 9:30pm magazine show again 2 hours after it ends at 11:30pm (in case you loved it so much you would want to see it again). The 10:30pm slot now also has a rerun of a different magazine show.
This then leaves only the 10pm and 11pm half hours with live news bulletins, on a channel who's one of a few slogans are "Prime Time, all the Time." (If they were really smart they would have moved the 10pm bulletin out of that slot so that it doesn't air directly against eNews Late Edition on eTV)
It also means that eNCA now becomes the first of South Africa's news channels to sign off at night (11:30pm), compared to the midnight sign off on SABC News' Your World and ANN7's Night Cap.
What makes things sadder is that a large pool of on air anchors that traditionally do the late shift, including Fenly Foxen, Duduzile Ramele, Lindy Mtongana and Mabale Moloi, among others now have to share a shrinking amount of air time between them all.
This is the second cut back of programing on the channel. Earlier this year the channel cancelled the Africa Edition program that was seen on the international feed on SKY and Livestation.com and also overnight on the DStv feed.
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