SABC ordered to reinstate 7 of the "#SABC8," Vuyo Mvoko excluded

After what has been a rather turbulent few weeks at the SABC, the broadcaster late this afternoon announced plans to reinstate 7 of the 8 journalists it dismissed for speaking out against the broadcaster's plan to no longer cover destructive protests. 

The SABC, under the reigns of COO Hlaudi Motsoeneng, last week defied a court order by locking out four of the journalists after being ordered to reinstate them. At the time, the SABC planned to appeal the court order, but such plans has since been dropped.

The reinstated journalists are:

• Thandeka Gqubule (economics editor)
• Busisiwe Ntuli (Special Assignment executive producer) 
• Lukhanyo Calata (SABC parliamentary correspondent)
•  Krivani Pillay (SAfm current affairs executive producer)
• Foeta Krige (RSG executive editor)
• Jacques Steenkamp (senior investigative journalist)
• Suna Venter (senir journalist)

The most senior member of the SABC8, contributing editor, Vuyo Mvoko, has not been reinstated (well at least not yet). Mvoko authored an article that appeared in Independent Newspapers  titles in which he criticised the SABC's policies, a move his lawyer called protecting the broadcaster. The brodcaster then terminated his contract for bringing the broadcast into disrepute. 

Mvoko has since applied to the Johannesburg High Court for the enforcement of his contract. The only reason a decision on him was not made today is because he is being legally represented separately from the rest of the "SABC8."

[Personally, it is elections next week and I am really going to miss Mvoko not playing a major role in that day's broadcasts as he always does on major political news days.]

South African Communist Party protests at eNCA

eNCA reporter, Phakamile Hlubi, particpated in the protest

One really has to consider the state of South African broadcast media when there has been a protest at every single domestic news channel in the past 10 days. Every. Single. One. Of. Them.

One of the major issues that were protested today were the IPSOS polling eNCA has been carrying out, and broadcasting, over this last month. The organisation and those who marched along with them want eNCA to immediately pull the polling as they feel it is deceiving.

The major so called deception? The claim by the polls that the ruling African National Congress will lose the Tshwane metro in the upcoming local elections. The party has also given ETV 48 hours to explain why they, the party, should not take etv to the electoral court. They further accused the channel of having a political agender behind the polling.

Electoral polling is considered a highly controversial issue where ever such polls are conducted. In the United States, where polls determine who gets to participate in presidential debates, the polls have been accused of influencing who gets elected considering those who do not meet the made up criteria to enter the debate stage do not get the free and highly valuable publicity that comes along with being on the debate stage.

For example, to be on a presidential debate stage, candidates have to average 15% in polls. The current major third party candidate from the Libertarian Party only has 9% and will not get the exposure of an audience exceeding 60 million.

In India, the same company that carries out the polls for ANN7 was accused of faking the results of the polls in order to influence public perception.

The other major point of contention at the protest was the freedom (or allegedly the lack thereof) of etv staff to join trade unions. Protestors held up placards stating that 'Workers are not free at e,' a play on words with the red letter channel's slogan.

Furthermore, the protest aimed to stop gender discrimination at the channel, due to female staff being prohibited from wearing head scarves on air. In addition, the protestors wanted to address the lack of transformation at the channel, due to allegations that senior positions are always just filled by white individuals.

The protestors delivered a memorandum to management, who actually took time tolisten to them (unlike at ANN7 where the management just looked at them, or at the SABC where Chief Operating Officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng did not come out to see them at all).

eNCA's editor-in-chief, Anton Harber, signed the memorandum and stated that they will read it and consider it carefully.

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.

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)

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.