eNCA Cut From SKY

eNCA, the South African news channel whose editorial independence has been under scrutiny as of late, is being cut from the SKY satellite tv platform in the UK, a mere two years after launch.

The reason for the cut, according to Patrick Conroy, is that the company is responding to the changes in the way people consume news in the digital world, which I call crap on. In the US, which is a relatively more digitally developed digital market than the UK, news channels are still springing up, with not one being online-exclusive, though they do maintain an online presence as well. It makes no sense for an expanding news operation like eNCA to now solely depend on online distribution where it will just disappear into obscurity among other news services.

Conroy further stated that broadcasting via satellite is quite expensive, which may be the true reason why the channel was being cut. It seems as if instead of SKY paying eNCA for the rights to have channel on their platfor, eNCA instead paid SKY for the rights to be on the platform.

When the channel launched on SKY two years ago with much fan fair, which included a statement from the president's office congratulating them and constantly being reported as "news" on eTV's eNews Prime Time bulletin, the channel changed its name from the eNews Channel to eNCA.

The channel also launched African Edition, a pan-African news bulletin that aired after News Night exclusively on the SKY platform hosted by Lindy Mtongana and Kwangu Liwewe. That has, as I reported, been cut a few months ago.

The channel does, however, remain available to viewers outside South Africa at livestation.com, a platform that hosts many other news channels. (For rights reasons, eNCA cannot be viewed from South Africa on Livestation)