ANN7 staff protest

Staff of ANN7 (DStv 405) held a protest outside of the channel's Midrand premises today.

Staff from the Infinity Media tv channel were joined by members of the Communication Workers Union.

The protest is a result of the channel unfairly dismising what is now nine employees due to the way these employees reacted negatively to ANC Youth League leader, Collen Maine, coming onto the premises to speak to them about the four major banks that have closed all Gupta-owned bank accounts. These employees (and a group of others that have not been released) spoke up about this as they felt he was putting the interest of the owners before their own interests, which was the working conditions experienced by them.

Further, the employees wants the channel to stop unfair labour practices and 'union bashing,' and for the immediate reinstatement of their colleagues.

The protest was also supported by the Right2Know Campaign, who said that they stand in solidarity with the protestors.

Those that have left ANN7 in the past have taken to Twitter to tweet about their experiences as well.

Sadly, this is only the first protest that will be taking place as South African broadcast news houses. Later this week, protest action is expected to take place outside the premises of the SABC both in Cape Town and Johannesburg.

eNCA announces new media show with Eusebius Mckaiser

After 8 years on the air, eNCA is finally launching a show analysing the local news media.

The often controversial Eusebius Mckaiser joins the channel to host the weekly show, titled ''Meet the Media With Eusebius Mckaiser," which will be broadcast live every Sunday morning at 10am.

The launch of the show comes hot on the heels of the SABC's COO, Hlaudi Motsoeneng, swiftly cancelling all the public broadcaster's programming that featured editors from external media houses.

Editors and journalists from news organisations from across South Africa will be invited to give insight into their editorial decisions and the week’s main stories

“We want to show how the sausage is made, for better or for worse”, said eNCA Editor-in-Chief Anton Harber.

“This show will push journalists to explain what lies behind the decisions they make that affect others – in other words, to practice the transparency they preach to others. I hope that will help people understand better what we do. I think it will be fascinating.”

“I am delighted to be joining eNCA because it is an excellent platform for unashamedly celebrating what works in our country and analyse what's going awry. I look forward to drilling down into the top stories in the media weekly, sparking debate and having plenty of on-screen fun at the same time,” said Mckaiser.

When it comes to political analysts, Mckaiser is among the country's elite. He has hosted radio shows and written for various local and international publications, including the New York Times.

It us uncertain how this new show launch will affect longrunning 'media' show (It's more about advertising), Maggs on Media, which currently airs at 10:30am.

'Meet the Media With Eusebius Mckaiser' premieres live on July 3rd.

SABC3 announces slew of new unscripted shows

SABC3 today made official  a slew of new shows, most of which are unscripted local fare, including a new, fully-fledged weekend breakfast show.

Expresso/Weekend Edition
With the news of Expresso getting an additional thirty minutes during the weekcomes the news that the channel will be going all in with a breakfast show on the weekends.
One thing that is uncertain is what the show will be called: the official press release says "Weekend Editon" whilst many in the media says it will be called Expresso.
The show will be hosted by Phat Joe and Khanyi Mbau. Joe is a long time radio dj (who I am a fan of) and also hosts the Real Goboza on SABC1. Mbau recently finished a near three year run with her own weekly talk show, Katch It with Khanyi Mbau on etv/eKasi+.
It was not made clear whether the show will be aired live from the Expresso studio in Cape Town or if it will originate from Johannesburg.
Saturdays and Sundays at 6am-9am

Tween Talk Live
A daily live show targeted to viewers 9-12, who are still at school when the show airs at 2pm daily.
The focus is on learning important life skills.

Larger Than Life
Comedian Jason Goliath hosts the country's first daily late night comedy-chat show. Goliath is not new to the SABC3 audience, having competed on the most recent season of Strictly Come Dancing.
The focus is on youth and pop culture.
Monday to Thursday at 10pm

Current affairs show, Special Assignment, moves from Sunday evenings to Wednesdays at 9:30pm, a slot it held quite a few years ago.

Real Talk with Anele Mdoda (Starts 21 July)
This is the replacement for 3Talk we have been waiting for (not the daily live Top Billing episode called Afternoon Express with nothing being 'Express' about it): The show will feature topical discussions and interviews about current affairs, entertainment and other information.
Will slant slightly toward the female audience
Daily at 4pm

SABC2 shakes up schedule, moves news bulletins and current affairs programming

The SABC today officially announced changes to the prime time schedule of SABC2 with the channel's prime time news bulletins all moving.

The channel's Sesotho, Sepedi and Setswana news bulletin moves from 6pm to 6:30pm, a more convenient time for those getting home from work.

The channel's Afrikaans news bulletin moves from its long running 7pm slot to 7:30pm, a time slot previously trialed on SABC3 which caused viewership of the bulletin to plunge. It will probably be more successful this time as its long time lead in, 7de Laan, will also be moving to 7pm so these two shows will remain back to back for viewers that traditionally watch both Afrikaans shows.

The Afrikaans news bulletin on weekends too shift to 7:30pm with the Sesotho/Sepedi/Setswana on weekends also shifting to 6:30pm.

Weekend current affairs programme, Fokus, shifts to 6pm.

Other changes at the channel include the daily Dr Phil episode being canned in favour of local reruns. Local reruns occupies the 6pm slot for now. All shows that are still running and airs at 7:30pm moves half hour later.

The changes come into effect on Monday, July 4th.

#TshwaneUnrest: Coverage notes

[These are rough notes]

eNCA was the first news channel to break the news at 21:52 with an update on the story on its onscreen ticker. The channel covered the story in full from 10pm.
At 10:09pm, ANN7 breaks the news on their flipper (a ticker ticks, a flipper flips), with on air mention of the story immediately after.
SABC News CHannel was silent on the story for the entire 10pm hour.

In the 10:30pm half hour, SABC News Channel continued with their regular bulletin, uninterrupted, whilst ANN7 repeated a one hour old edition of Africa Tonight. eNCA decided to cancel their scheduled airing of  Maggs on Media to cover the events in Tshwane. However, the channel continued with their regular sports and weather slots.

At 11pm, the SABC New Channel interviewed the Tshwane mayor by phone for what was a light news update from the mayor. Whilst the mayor spoke, instead of showing visuals of the events, for obvious reasons, the channel opted to just show a map instead. Immediately after the interview, the SABC News Channel returned to their regular news wheel for the evening.

ANN7 had two major phone interviews at the top of the 11pm hour: first with Blessing Manale, the Tshwane Mayor's spokesperson, and then with Solly Msimanga, the DA's myoral candidate for Tshwane. Once the interviews were done, they reaired the news pieces on the unrest, before they too returned to their regular news wheel with a story on the Oscar trial. The unrest was still covered on their onscreen flipper.

At 11pm, eNCA had their in house commentator, Angelo Fick in the studio providing analysis on the events. This interview continued well after the other news channels ceased covering the events. However, one has to question whether this style of relaxed analysis is required at a time when a major story is still unfolding. After this, they aired a clip from their earlier interview with the current Tshwane mayor, before going to commercial. After the break, the channels news editor joined them live from Mamelodi via Skype. This is the first on the ground coverage on an event that had been happening for hours now. It was done with a cellphone. Think about that. Soon thereafter, the channel aired another piece on the ANC's mayoral candidates
At 11:25pm, eNCA aired the weather. Again.

At 11:30pm, the SABC News Channel did a 2 minute segment on the events, just telling viewers what happened before doing a brief phone in interview with the ANC's regional deputy chairperson.

Believe it or not, at 11:30pm, the SABC News Channel provided the best coverage on the events compared to the other news channels:
eNCA decided to re air today's edition of the Justice Factor again. What is strange is that before the start of the episode, the channel did not even sign off. The anchor simply said the weather is next, not telling viewers that might expect otherwise that he will not be back after the break.
ANN7 is even worse: they re aired their entire 11pm news bulletin in full at 11:30pm without any indication that what viewers are seeing is in fact not live news. Personally, I feel passing a taped bulletin as being live is one of the biggest 'sins' a news channel can commit.

There are roughly 5 million DStv households in the country. They were the only ones with access to any news on the events.

Expresso gets extended

With the SABC's COO, Hlaudi Motsoeneng, driving the growth of local content on all of the SABC's platforms, a look at SABC3's schedule for next month shows that its breakfast show, Expresso, will be expanded by thirty minutes from the early next month.

This follows just a few weeks after etv expanded its breakfast show, Sunrise, to 3 hours as well. However, Sunrise airs from 5:30am whilst Expresso will now air for three hours from 6am.

This also means that Expresso will be the last major breakfast show on air every morning as SABC2's Morning Live ends at 8am (the third hour is exclusive to the SABC News Channel).

As the channel has been mandated to expand its local content quota to 80%, Expresso's sister show, Afternoon Express, will now air an hour later from 5pm (barely the afternoon, but okay) to make room for a new talk show at 4pm.

When it rains, it pours, and there will be an even further two new daily talk shows on SABC3 come 4 July. A chat show aimed at the youth audience will air at 2pm (when they still in school). This means that the SABC will now offer three hours of back to back live, local youth content across its channels: This new yet to be named show on SABC3 at 2pm, YOTV Live on SABC1 at 3pm and Hectic Nine9 on SABC2 at 4pm.

The other new show is going to be a late night show at 10pm (which I am very excited about, even though nothing is known yet. It will be the country's first daily one hour late night show)

Exclusive ITV-Oscar Pistorius interview to air on M-Net and M-Net City

M-Net has announced that the pay tv broadcaster has secured the rights to the highly anticipated and much hyped ITV interview/documentary, Oscar Pistorius: The Interview.

The interview will premiere on M-Net this Friday, 24 June 2016 at 22:55, whilst the credits will still be rolling from its first broadcast over in the UK on the ITV network. In addition, the broadcast will be simulcast on M-Net City, which is an M-Net channel available on both the DStv Compact and Extra bouquets, allowing more people to see the special broadcast.

Because M-Net has been hyping the court case as if it is a major soccer match, there will also be a live panel that will be providing what is essentially a build up and post match analysis. So far, we know that John Webb, who had been reporting from court, will be in studio. This special will be broadcast from an actual Supersport studio that is used to hype up sports matches.This part of the special will be produced by the Carte Blanche team.

Carte Blanche ran a popup channel covering the initial trial and has continued to cover the trial during their regular Sunday broadcast.

“The content of the documentary will undoubtedly make headline news across the globe and our viewers will be able to see it in full and in high quality on the M-Net Channels first. In addition to that the Carte Blanche team, who has been following the trial intensively from the start, will add to the conversation with their valuable insights and comments with the Carte Blanche special,” says Jan du Plessis, Director: M-Net Channels.

In addition, because the broadcast time is quite late and on an evening when television viewership is slightly lower, the special will be made available on the DStv Catch Up platform and also air on Supersport channels at various times. Expect to see the interview quite a few times as one of the questions under the FAQ of the release asks "Why are you airing the interview so many times?"

In the interview, acclaimed ITV investigative journalist, Mark Williams-Thomas, will meet up with Pistorius at his uncle's home where he had been  staying in order to provide his side of the story.

Why did Pistorius choose the UK's ITV for the interview instead of a domestic journalist? Apparently he prefers the 'format' presented by the foreign broadcaster. What exactly is the 'format' of a documentary/interview in any case? Is ITV paying him? Are they allowing a certain level of editorial control? Who knows, but it just doesn't make sense why go that far, as if a local broadcaster would not have tweaked a 'format' for him.

Pistorius is not the first major role player in the trial to prefer speaking to foreign media instead of local media. During the initial trial, Reeva Steenkamp's family opted to open up to NBC's Today Show (United States) instead of a local media source. The odd move led to American media commentators to speculate that NBC had paid the family for the interview (as it is odd, at least in the US, to prefer foreign media over local media), especially considering how close to the time of the incident the interview took place. The pressure from critics led NBC to actually issue a statement that no sum of money had [apparently] been paid for that interview.

[ANN7's Michael Appel has Tweeted that he will be appearing in the special]

Both eNCA and ANN7 launch election polls

eNCA

eNCA's poll will be launched with the help of research company, Ipsos.
eNCA's focus is on what they term the 'battleground cities' of Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth and Pretoria. The data is first checked for validity before it gets added to the cumulative results to provide an aggregate picture of what the voter sentiment in these three cities are like.
Instead of just asking voters which party they voting for, the polls are asking them other political questions as well. One question also asked if the voters will actually be voting, to which 15% said they would not be voting this year.
The results from the latest poll will be revealed tonight (Youth Day) at 6:30pm on News Night.

ANN7

ANN7 has been advertising the launch of their poll as the 'The poll pundits are back.' The channel is further stating that their polls were the only polls that got it right in 2014, even though they were the only channel running these kind of polls in 2014.
ANN7 is planning to broadcast their weekly poll projections every Friday night during SA Decides at 5pm and ANN7 Prime at 7pm.

Stevie B no longer with ANN7

ANN7's business news anchor and anchor of BizSense, Stevie B, is no longer with ANN7.

He started anchoring at ANN7 on the last Monday of November last year and aimed to have a business show targeted to regular South Africans.

At the start of this month, Kaya FM announced that Stevie (real name Steven Bacher) would be leaving the station as he needed a new challenge after twelve years. For now, he has joined MixFM in Joburg and plans to launch his own radio station in the next ten years.

For now, ANN7 Prime anchor, Sindy Mabe, will continue to anchor BizSense, which airs immediately after ANN7 Prime at 8pm until a permanent replacement is found.

eNCA to once again feature junior anchors this Youth Day

eNCA today revealed that the channel will once again feature 'junior anchors' co-anchoring the news on Youth Day this year.

The school learners will sit alongside usual eNCA anchors and present a few segments during the bulletin they part of. The channel will also feature debates around issues pertaining to the youth throughout the day and will allow their 'Junior Anchors' to get a few questions in as well.

In addition, the channel will also have school children who want to work in the industry doing various behind the scenes roles as well.

The channel did the same last year and it wasn't too bad. Quite nice actually, even though a few of the anchors were a bit reserved.

All the local news channels tend to feature younger talent on Youth Day. Last year, the SABC produced a live Youth Day special anchored primarily by their younger reporters and anchors.

Some more Oscar for us

eNCA has confirmed that they will cover the proceedings of Oscar Pistorius' sentencing this coming Monday.

As we would expect, Karyn Maughn and Annika Larsen will be live from the courthouse. Maughn is usually the person to follow on twitter for up to the  minute updates.

The channel has also confirmed that they will stream the proceedings live on their website.

ANN7's Michael Appel will be at the court as well, as he has always been since day one. That channel will cover proceedings live as well.

It is expected that SABC News Channel will carry the proceedings as well, though they have yet to confirm details.

RATINGS: May's free to air highlights

Below are some highlights of tv ratings for news and actuality programming in May:

• SABC1's Xhosa news bulletin and their Zulu news bulletin still leads the pack by wide margins, averaging 4.5 million and 4.2 million viewers during the month, respectively.
• SABC2's Speak Out continues to be the top rated current affairs program in the country, averaging 2.4 million viewers during the month. The show also does well on Twitter when it airs, usually occupying the number one trend spot in the country.
• SABC2's Afrikaans news bulletin pulled a healthy 1.57 million viewers whilst their 6pm multilingual bulletin pulled in 1.54 million viewers. I know I say this often, but I will say it again: there is absolutely no reason why three official languages should be squeezed into one thirty minute slot.
• The English news bulletin on SABC3 continues its slow climb in total viewers with 865 000 viewers for the month (I remember times when it averaged below 600 000).
• For etv, the one minute 'eNews Direct Headlines' continues to benefit from its WWE lead in, averaging a whopping 2.7 million viewers for the month. However, the main eNews Direct bulletin 

• On Vuzu, the daily entertainment news bulletin, VEntertainment averages 67 000 viewers for the month. However, just to repeat again, this is viewers for Vuzu (DStv 116) only and excludes viewers watching  on the High Definition Vuzu AMP.

Supersport unveils UEFA Euro coverage plans

Supersport has released their coverage plans for the UEFA Euro tournament that will be starting this Friday evening, June 10th. Below are the highlights:

There will be a live preview show, tonight, Thursday 9th at 8pm CAT hosted by Neil Andrews and Carol Tshabalala in Randburg with inserts featuring John Dykes and Julia Stewart in France. Supersport 3 will also be airing the live kickoff concert tonight from 22:50pm hosted by David Guetta.

Julia Stewart with John Dykes in France

As one would expect, all matches will be airing live and in High Definition on Supersport 3 and, when more than one match is played simultaneously, Supersport 4.


Every match will feature a one hour buildup live from Supersport's Studio 6, which will feature the latest bells and whistles when it comes to augmented reality and special graphics. This coverage will be anchored by Neil Andrews, Caro Tshabalala and Robert Marawa.

Every match will once again have four audio options: English, Zulu, Sotho and Portuguese (If you ever wondered why Supersport always has Portuguese covered, its because the language is spoken widely in Mozambique and Angola, both countries that receive the same Supersport feed like us here in SA).

Supersport has deployed three news crews across France for the tournament who will be providing live and rolling updates during their live coverage on Supersport 3 and also file reports for Supersport Blitz.

The coverage will feature 4 magazine shows:

• Masterplan: No introduction needed: Supersport's long running weekly in depth analysis brand returns yet again on Sundays at 2pm. 
• A la Carte: A show for the social media generation, A la Carte will provide a youthful recap of the week's matches as well as provide a preview of what is to come. The show will be hosted  by celebrities and feature all sorts of fun for weekend mornings at 9am.
• Insight with John Dykes: Will feature interviews with soccer legends in France. 
• French Connection: This show will see Julia Stewart experiencing the atmosphere in France and her journey around the country.

The SABC bans the reading of newspaper headlines on the air

Yet another sweeping change affecting the SABC has been announced earlier today with COO, Hlaudi Motsoeneng, announcing that the broadcaster will no longer be reading newspaper headlines on the air, on tv or radio.

The reason? Apparently reading newspaper headlines, which is a practice done by many news broadcasters around the world, gives the newspapers free advertising and if the newspapers want exposure on the SABC, they will have to pay for it.

The problem is that many programs like Morning Live on SABC2 have the daily reading of the newspaper headlines on air to give viewers a sense of what is happening in the country and around the world from different editorial perspectives.

Worse than that, the SABC has a weekly media news show, Media Monitor, on the SABC News Channel whose entire objective it is to report on what the press at large are reporting and how they are doing it. How do you report what was reported at a newspaper if you, well, can't say what was reported. Will make for some interesting, and probably cringe worthy, viewing this coming Sunday.

The move has since been met with uproar, with the Democratic Alliance calling it yet another move to protect the ANC.

Ferial Haffajee joins Bloomberg

The City Press' editor, Ferial Haffajee today announced that she will be stepping down from that position, a position she has held since 2009.

She will be joining Bloomberg as a writer, who last month grabbed eNCA's business anchor, Arabile Gumede, as well.

"My seven years with the company have been a joy and a life highlight," Haffajee said in a statement. Prior to holding the position of editor-in-chief at City Press, she held that same position at The Mail and Guardian.

Haffajee will stay with City Press through to the end of June, before joining Bloomberg's now expanding Johannesburg bureau in the Spring.
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It seems as if history is repeating itself with Bloomberg, again. Remember in 2013 when they heavily beefed up the Bloomberg TV Africa division? Jounalists were stolen from everywhere and with much fanfare, even Eleni Giokos from eNCA decided to join the division. Fast forward to just over a year later and the entire division  was shuttered due to company-wide cuts that took place, leaving Giokos, among others, to do freelance work. And now, the business-centric news organisation is expanding again. For how long? Lets see.

CONFIRMED: John Dykes will be joining Supersport's coverage of the 2016 UEFA Euro tournament

Though Supersport has not yet unveiled their detailed plans on how they will be covering the UEFA Euro tournament (Other than the fact that every match will be live, in high definition, and on DStv Compact across the continent), John Dykes this past week announced that he will be joining the broadcaster's coverage.

Dykes, who is the main anchor of the English Premier League's international content service (Branded as 'Supersport 3' in Africa), previously flew down and anchored a few of the 2014 FIFA World Cup games for the Randburg-based broadcaster. Then an unforeseen circumstance saw regular Supersport presenter, Robert Marawa flying back from Brazil, which led to Dykes being relegated to touchscreen duty.

This time around, Dykes will be reporting live for Supersport throughout the tournament and will be based on the ground in France, where the tournament is set to take place.

eTV shakes up Sunrise

eTV today announced big changes coming to its breakfast show, Sunrise.


First and foremost, the show is ditching its long time home at eTV's studio 101 for a new more homely feeling studio, pictured above. Studio 101 is the same studio that used to house eNews Prime Time before that got replaced with eNews Direct (In case you did not know, the 'studio' is the actual room whilst the 'set' is the furniture. Though the two shared the same studio, they each had their own set and one would not know that they were being done from the same studio at all).

Studio 101 is also the studio that got struck by lightning a few years back, which forced Sunrise to not air for a few days.

Also, the show's graphics package gets a fresh make over, whilst the Sunrise logo itself stays the same.

The biggest change announced today is that the show is expanding to 3 hours, broadcasting live from 5:30am-8:30am. The local-languaged news bulletins that used to air in the 5:30am time slot will now be absorbed into the main Sunrise bulletin, though how this is to happen is yet to be announced considering Sunrise already has an English news reader in Marc Chase.

This is not the first time A South African breakfast show is flirting with the 5am hour (they traditionally air from 6am). When Expresso initially started, it ran from 5:30am. However, that half hour just rated poorly and was shifted to the 8am half hour.

All these changes take effect from this Monday, 6 June 2016.