"e.tv is disappointed that its application to broadcast its 6.30pm eNews Direct bulletin outside of prime time has been refused," the broadcaster's head of corporate affairs, Vasili Vass stated, before saying that etv awaits an explanation from ICASA as to why their application was denied.
They made the application in response to what they said is the changing media environment and how South Africans are now consuming news in different ways.
What they conveniently forget to state is that, firstly, the SABC's news bulletins are doing as well as ever, even the ones that air later at night (including the SABC's English news bulletin finally starting to build a decent audience). In addition, the only reason why eNews Direct is attracting so few eyeballs (viewership is less than a third of what eNews Prime Time earned not too long before eNews Direct launched) is because they moved the bulletin to 6:30pm (which may not seem like much considering its predecessor was at 7pm but it did require a large lifestyle change from regular viewers, something they were not willing to do) and tweaked its format into something its viewers could barely recognise.
Though the timeslot swap with Rhythm City proved beneficial to the soap, the drastic drop in viewers for the news bulletin actually absorbs any benefits created by the increased viewership of Rhythm City. However, at this point, it is virtually impossible to put Rhythm City back at 6:30pm as it would struggle greatly against the SABC's soap that filled the void left by City in that slot, Skeem Saam.
Just for interest's sake, etv's license stipulates that the broadcaster is to broadcast at least two hours of news per day, of which thirty minutes is to be packaged as a single programme to be broadcast during primetime.
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