Times Media Television launches SME Zone

Times Media today officially announced the launch of its fourth television channel, SME Zone.

SME Zone joins Times Media's other channels on the DStv platform, Business Day TV, The Home Channel and Ignition.

The channel, which aims to be a self-help platform for small business owners and those looking to start a business, will air on weekends on channel 412, the same channel number as Business Day TV (and also the same way Ignition started as a weekend block before being expanded to a full channel).

The SME Zone will feature step-by-step guides on how to identify, start and grow a successful business; educational modules such asThe Small Business MBA; real-life mentoring sessions with experts; and tips and inspiration from some of SA’s top entrepreneurs.

“Nine out of 10 small businesses fail within the first 3 years,” says Semeyi Zake, creator and executive producer of the SME Zone. “That’s a terrible waste of hope, energy and resources. We aim to give entrepreneurs a fighting chance, via clear templates and business models that will greatly increase their chances of success.”

Some of the shows in the SME Zone line-up include: Jumpstart (self-help jobs you can start with R500 or less); Biz Guide 101 (a blueprint for running 25 popular businesses); Pimp my Bizz (revamping a faltering enterprise); Pitch & Polish (a nationwide search for the best ideas); and SME Funding.

“We realized there’s a hunger for business knowledge beyond the markets and corporate deals. As a channel, we are passionate about small business, realizing that this is where we can make an impact in addressing the country’s skills gap and play our role in creating employment and growing this economy,” Zake adds.

Vernon Matzopoulos, Head of Broadcast at Times Media, said: “We’re looking to help grow the next generation of business, and TV is an incredibly powerful medium of instruction to drive that. Thanks to DStv’s generosity in making the airtime available, we can now reach into 5.5 million homes – and hopefully inspire a small business revolution.”

You can find out more about the channel at its dedicated site, http://www.businessdaytv.co.za/smezone/

Mid Term Budget Coverage Amid Student Protests

The SABC News Channel,  which has dedicated much less airtime to the student protests compared to the other news channels, covered the middterm budget from parliament as if there was no other big news happening in the country at the same time. Business anchor, Francis Herd, anchored coverage from the SABC's studio at parliament. Having a business news anchor and not a general news anchor at parliament also indicates the channel had no intention of shifting away from budget coverage to protest coverage. However, Francis did briefly mention the protests.  The SABC's budget buildup and coverage was simulcast on SABC3 from the 1pm hour, then SABC2 for the next 2 hours.

When it became clear that the happenings outside parliament would be affecting what goes on inside, the SABC decided to add a bit more focus to what was going on outside.

ANN7 showed scenes of student protesters outside parliament

On ANN7, it was as if the Midterm Budget speech was just another location of protests, i.e. only covering parliament from perspective of protesting students and not Minister Nene's speech. They continued with wall to wall coverage of the protests throughout the day. Kevin Brandt was situated outside parliament. The channel went live to parliament at 2pm, with no actual buildup to the speech. They added a video box with scenes outside parliament at about 2:20pm.

eNCA tried to find a common ground, covering the budget speech as normal as possible, with Andrew Barnes at parliament as usual, but not in the usual glass studio they have. He was instead among the protestors getting an on the ground feeling among the protestors. Throughout coverage of the proceedings, eNCA had a video box on screen showing live pictures from outside parliament.

CNBC Africa's prebudget panel

CNBC Africa covered the budget speech live, hosting both a preview and review panel on each side of the speech.

Like last year, Business Day TV did not provide any live coverage of the Mid Term Budget Speech.

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At 2:43pm, Minister of Finance, Nhlanhla Nene, finally [tried to] started speaking on the budget, but this was followed by a "fees must fall" chant.

2:47pm: The EFF's Ministers in Parliament were escorted out of the National Assembly

2:47pm Students have broken through the entrance of parliament. eNCA's Lester Kiewit is only reporter live on the scene covering this

2:49 Minister Nene continues speech. eNCA shows Minister in small block while allowing the scenes  outside parliament to play out with full audio.

SABC News split screen of Minister Nene and student protestors

2:53 Stun grenades go off outside parliament as Minister continues to speak
SABC News goes split screen with Minister in parliament. ANN7 completely removes small video box from happenings outside parliament


3:07pm Not one local news channel (except CNBC Africa) is providing major coverage of the midterm budget speech anymore

2:55 ANN7 Cut away from budget speech completely, covering protests outside instead. Kevin Brandt is calling in

3:02pm Andrew barnes notes he has never seen this big of a crowd attracted to a midterm budget speech.

3:10pm Gates of parliament are closed with students now locked out

Business anchor, Francis Herd, has been taken off the air of the SABC News Channel with their coverage being shifted to their studio in Johannesburg, anchored by Anita
Nomawethu Solwandle is reporting live via phone on SABC News Channel

3:31pm eNCA becomes first major news channel to return to proceedings in parliament
3:34pm Minister Nene finishes his speech, which was barely seen by viewers other than those wathcing on CNBC Africa. MP's are advised to go to their offices after parliament session ends until they advised to 'leave safely'

3:35pm MMusi Maimane requests the President and Minister Nzimande go address the people outside

3:36pm House adjurns fo the day (I have no idea what was said in the budget speech)

After budget speech, SABC News Channel tries to do classical post budget tradition of getting reaction from Ministers in Parliament, and CNBC Africa is analysing the budget.
eNCA and ANN7 focusing solely on the riots.

Budget Coverage Recap

SABC News' business anchor, Francis Herd, and Morning Live's Ayanda Allie Paine broadcast from Cape Town (side note: both are former eNews anchors). Francis was also the first journo to get an interview with Minister Nene after his speech. 

eNCA had business anchor Arabile Gumede in studio from early morning in their buildup to the budget speech.Bhavna Singh and Andrew Barnes anchored News Day from Parliament. Due to the budget speech, eTV viewers got to see the full edition of News Day from 1pm until 4pm. Later in the day, eNCA balanced their budget coverage with the latest developments in the leaked documents saga.

On ANN7, Juliet Newell anchored from their studio in Johannesburg. I don't know if her sitting in for Karabo Yibe today was a coincidence or not, but Juliet is of course a former business anchor at Summit TV (now Business Day TV). Avumile Qongqo was in Thembisa getting reaction on the budget from regular citizens.

Of course, as expected, both Business Day TV amd CNBC Africa provided round the clock coverage on the budget.

Which Local News Channel Boasts The Most Popular Website?

With viewership statistics for local news channels being rare to find at best, I thought I would look at the popularity of each of the local news channels' websites, the next best metric that is actually available.

All of South Africa's three general news channels, and the two business channels, maintain their own news websites that compete nit only with each other, but also other online-only brands of news, along with social media.

So, which South African news channel has the most popular website?

5. ann7.com
In a distant fifth place, ANN7's (DStv 405) website ranks as the 11 784th most popular website in South Africa (692,277 globally).

The average visitor to the website spends only 1 minute, 59 seconds on the website, averaging 1.8 per visitor.

The website's bounce rate, which measures the percentage of visitors that leave the website after only looking at the homepage is 57.1%

Like its television counterpart, the online version of ANN7 also barely features any advertisements. But for some reason the website still feels quite cluttered and unorganised.

92% of the website's traffic originates from South Africa.


It is worth noting that ANN7's website is also by far the youngest of any of the websites listed at slightly more than a year. Even though the SABC News channel is just a few weeks older than it, SABC News has had an online platform for a long time before laucnhing the SABC News channel.

Ann7 is one of three local news sites that make their tv feed available for free at their own site.



4. businessdaytv.co.za
In fourth place is the official website of Business Day TV (DStv 412), which is the 1 487th most popular website overall in South Africa (339 606 globally).

Like Business Day TV is the tv counterpart to the nationally-distributed Business Day newspaper, bussinessdaytv.co.za is the sister of businessdayonline.co.za, the actual website of the newspaper, while businessdaytv.co.za focuses more on the television channel, including videos and a free live feed of the tv channel, along with some news, though not as extensive as Business Day Online.

Though its visitor figure is lower than most other websites on the list, its visitors are undoubtedly the most satisfied (or most dedicated), with its bounce rate of 28.6%, 8 average page views per visitor and 9:58 minutes spent online by the average visitor, all of which are much greater than any other website listed here. Their online team must be doing something right.

Its visitor percentage from South Africa is also much higher than the rest, with 99.3% of visitors originating from SA.



3. cnbcafrica.com
Though its South African rank of 1759th is worse than BDTV, the website of CNBC Africa (DStv410) ranks much higher when one looks at the global rank of 76,728th. This odd situation of being more popular internationally than domestically is due to a relatively small 34.1% of visitors from South Africa (much smaller than the rest), with the next most popular countries being Nigeria (28.1%), the US (8.4%) and Kenya (6.4%)

This mix is proof that CNBC Africa is truly a pan african news organisation and really covers news that interest people outside of South Africa (unlike other news channels that have the word "Africa" in their name but then their reporters in the Rest of Africa are doing reports on Twitter because for some reason they get so little airtime).

"cnbc live" was the second most searched for term that drove traffic to the site (and could also be why the channel is so popular in the US) as it has a live feed of the channel available for free to anyone, whereas in the US people would have to verify their pay tv subscription before being given access to the live feed. (CNBC Africa boasts quite a bit of daily live content from its international counterpart).

The channel' s bounce rate is 51.8%, daily viewers visit an average of 2.01 pages per visit and spend an average of 3:08 minutes on the website.






2. sabcnews.com

In second place is none other than the news website of the public broadcaster. Overall, it ranks as the 274th most popular website in SA (40 118 globally).

It boasts the highest bounce rate of any website on this list with 59.9%, the average visitor spends 2:14 minutes on the site, with the average visitor visiting 1.56 pages.

87.3% of visitors are from South Africa, with the US, India, the UK and Germany rounding out the top 5, respectively.

 Overall, I must say the SABC's news website is much cleaner than any other website on the list, and also quite colourful but not overdone. Whoever does the website for the organisation is doing a good job at it.

The SABC also maintains a very strong presence on Youtube and the stats listed here exclude stats for the organisation's individual channels' official websites or radio stations.



1. enca.com
It is not a surprise that the website of South Africa's most watched news channel, eNCA (DStv 403) is also the most visited website of any local news channel.

It ranks as the 247th most popular website overall in SA (29 370 globally).

The channel's bounce rate (hope you still remember what that is) is 50.1%, with the average visitor spending 3:29 minutes on the site, visiting 1.97 pages.

Since launching the website with the rebrand from eNews Channel to eNCA, the news organisation has undoubtedly put the most effort into its website in not very long of a time, and it paid off. The channel remained in its Beta phase (the time during which a wedsite or computer programme is tested and tweaked until perfect) for about a year before finally settling with its current design. When they finalised the design, they made a few slightly larger changes to the site, like expanding its Life section (Lifestyle news), in line with high traffic there.

The channel also maintains a strong presence on social media, with multiple Twitter accounts, a popular Youtube channel, popular personalities being quite active online and seamless intergration to their on televison product.

As expected, 79.1% of visitors are from South Africa, followed by the UK (where the channel ceased broadcasting recently) with 4.1% and Nigeria, india and the US rounding off the top five.

The channel is also available for live streaming at livestation.com

Not many surprises on the list, but let's see what happens in a year.
All statistics can be verified using online web measurement services like Alexa. All data is accurate as at December 2, 2014.

BDTV Goes Widescreen

 

South African business news channel Business Day TV, DStv 412, has started broadcasting in widescreen.

The channel also made slight adjustments to their on air presentation to go with the transition to the new aspect ratio.

This now leaves CNBC Africa as the only South African news channel not broadcasting in the now standard aspect ratio of 16:9.