The news, uninterrupted

What happens when tremors are felt in studio whilst live on the air? Your conversation continues uninterrupted of course:

VIDEO: Tremor felt across SA ... and eNCA's studio pic.twitter.com/iwMncV75zW

— eNCA (@eNCA) April 3, 2017

But seriously though, talk about a cool reaction. Makes one sadder thatIman is leaving soon.

Both Iman Rappetti and Jeremy Maggs leaving News Night

eNCA has unexpectedly announced that both news anchors of News Night, Senior Anchors Jeremy Maggs and Iman Rappetti, will be leaving the channel's prime time news bulletin, News Night.


The reason for both anchors leaving is that neither wants to work at night anymore. Though prime time is where any journalist wants to be considering its much larger audience, the veteran anchors are no longer willing to work their long days: both are presenters on PowerFM in the morning, then anchors at night.

Rather poetically (or coincidentally), burnout due to working radio and tv is the exact same reason why News Night's first female anchor, Redi Thlabi (then Redi Direko), left the job as well.

In recent months the two have been increasingly taking off days as well. This reached a stage where neither anchors on a Friday night and during the rest of the week it is mostly only one of them on duty.

Maggs leaves the slot after nearly nine years there, while Rappetti leaves after five. The five years that the duo have been together precedes the existence of the country's other two news channels, SABC News Channel and ANN7 and have been the constant in eNCA's lineup tweaks over the past few years, including a name change.

“It has been a heady, tough, rewarding, crazy ride,” says Iman.

“Both Jeremy and Iman have been key to the success of eNCA,” says Channel News Director Mapi Mhlangu. “We thank them for their loyalty, hard work and brilliance in bringing powerful news stories to our screens. This is a big change for the channel and our viewers, but also an opportunity to showcase talent in our newsroom and beyond.”

No word yet on who will replace the duo, but eNCA's bench of good enough anchors is not that deep so if anchors in other slots get the promotion, the channel will still have to look outside the group for new anchors in those slots. (Personally, my bets are on Joanne Joseph and Gareth Edwards, as that reduces disruption on the rest of the schedule and doesn't pull any of the quality reporters  from the field, but let's see).

Their final evening on News Night is expected in May, closer to the channel's birthday.

eNCA, SABC News Broadcast Vans Damaged During Protests at Union Buildings

As Fees Must Fall protests at the Union Building became violent today, Outside Broadcast Vans of both eNCA and SABC News were damaged and reporters caught between police and protesters.

The eNCA camera used by Iman Rappetti was also damaged, with its lens being cracked as it continued to provide live pictures to viewers. Throughout the day, Iman and her cameraman have consistently had close calls when rocks were thrown by protestors, with the cameraman being hit.

One SAC news team on the scene felt the situation for them had become too dangerous as threats had been made directly to them, choosing to move away from the Union Buildings and reports from a safe distance.Reporters , like Chriselda Lewis, have found themselves running for cover from not only rocks from students, but teargas as well.

Though no ANN7 team had been threatened physically, the channel drew criticism on social media when they became the only news organisation to link today's violence to the EFF, with Tweeters saying that this is a result of the ANN7-Gupta connection.
 

All News Channels Carry President Zuma's Address about the Marikana Report

eNCA, SABC News Channel and ANN7 all provided extensive coverage about President Zuma's Address to the nation about the Marikana Report.

The speech ran for 32 minutes, from 7:02pm to 7:34pm.

eNCA's coverage was anchored by Jeremy Maggs, with a 2 man in studio panel. Their analysis included in studio debate as well as live crossings to Iman Rappetti who was with families of victims of the Massacre, and Thulasizwe Simelani who was at Parliament getting reaction from the likes of DA reps. Their analysis extended for well after the actual address and the channel ended up preempting this evenings edition of Money Line.
The semi final episode of Tech Report at 9:30pm also got preempted.

SABC News Channel's coverage was simulcast on SABC 2, preempting the Afrikaans News and part of the Sotho news. Their coverage was anchored by Vuyo Mvoko. Though I love the way they use Mvoko as the anchor of their bigger news events so that when viewers see him onscreen they know its big news, constantly benching their regular prime time anchors (Vabakshnee Chety and Peter Ndoro, who anchored this morning's The New Age Buiness Brief) is starting to show a lack of faith in the duo. SABC News Channel was the first of the broadcaster to go back to scheduled programming with Sports Live at 8:30pm

ANN7 Prime with Cand Harris, Sebenzile Nkambule, Ricky Naidoo

ANN7's buildup started well before 7pm, meaning that this evening's edition of Game On! was preempted and will instead be broadcast in its traditional repeat slot of 10:30pm. The coverage was anchored by the new ANN7 Prime anchors Sebenzile Nkambule and Candy Harris. Their three man in studio panel included political editor (and host of Straight Talk) Ricky Naidoo. They also had live crossings to Kevin Brandt who was outside parliament.


If you look at stills at the top of this article, you will see both eNCA and ANN7 both actually had to get the video feed from the SABC News Channel as the state broadcaster was the only one that was allowed to have a camera present at the address.
This led to the onscreen graphics on both eNCA and ANN7 becoming messy with their graphics superimposed upon the SABC's.
When the SABC put up their full lower thirds banner, eNCA decided to black out that part of the screen, leading to nearly a third of the screen being black (though it is technically more on tv's like mine with a letterboxed aspect ratio.

Then, in what I think is a dirty tactic on the part of the SABC News Channel to get free advertising, they decided to remove the small SABC News logo at the bottom of the screen, which was covered by eNCA's and ANN7's graphics and instead put up the massive graphic where the two independent stations couldn't hide it without making the screen too cluttered. They even put a solid backing on the usually transparent logo to make it more eye catching, something they had never done before.

It is really worrying when only one broadcaster, the public broadcaster, is allowed to have a camera at an address by the president of the camera as it could lead to censorship: if that one SABC News Channel camera gets cut for whatever reason, no one outside of the venue would have access to it.

Is Gareth Edwards News Night's Permanent Friday Anchor Now?

Early in November, Gareth Edwards stepped down as anchor of eNCA's Afternoon News to take up the position of head of social media at the news organisation.

But it seems that despite this, Gareth now seems to be the channel's permanent anchor of News Night on a Friday evening. His first evening of anchoring the show in his current stint was November 7th.

His final Friday of anchoring his old Afternoon News slot was on November 14th, and he did not anchor that evening's News Night.

Since then, he has been anchoring News Night every Friday evening.

The only Friday evening he has not been anchoring News Night was on December 5th when the channel was covering the anniversary of the passing of Nelson Mandela, but even on that day he was providing live crossings from the Legacy Match.

I am definitely not complaining about having him on air every Friday, and I am sure neither Iman Rappetti or Jeremy Maggs, News Night's actual anchors, are complaining about having every weekend as a long weekend either. 

Gareth Edwards Back Behind The Anchor's Desk

Just a few weeks after stepping down from his anchoring role at eNCA to take up a position in the organisation's social media department, Gareth Edwards is back behind the anchor's desk manning NewsNight, where he is filling in for Iman Rappetti and Jeremy Maggs.

It is, however, odd that the channel now breaks the tradition of whoever does the afternoon news becomes the de facto fill in anchor for News Night now that Duduzile Ramela is the Afternoon News anchor.

Now that both of eNCA's prime time anchors are on the radio (both at Power FM) it is to be expected that they will take more days off from manning News Night as doing both radio and television in one day is a gruelling experience. Just ask News Night's first female anchor Redi Direko, who gave up the tv gig to stay on radio as doing both caused her to burn out.

Having Gareth Edwards as the channel's primary fill in anchor is similar to the role Debora Patta played when she was still with the organisation where she would have an off camera role and only appear on camera as a fill in anchor, which was a better choice than having some freelance anchor behind the desk who lacks experience.

I remember one day in particular where Debora was a fill in on what is now Afternoon News as the news at Marikana broke, so having that experienced fill in anchor available ensures that should breaking news occur, the person on screen would know what they doing.

eNCA's Iman Rappetti Takes Up Permanent Slot at Power FM

Iman Rappetti has joined Power FM

Iman Rappetti, co anchor of eNCA's primetime bulletin has taken the helm of Powr FM's mid morning show as of this past Monday, November 3rd.

Iman has previously done special broadcasts and fill in work at the fledgling radio station but will now become its permanent voice between 9am and 12 pm, replacing Eusebis Mckaiser, who has reached a "mutual" decision to leave the station.


Iman says it is an honour to be on two powerful media platforms (eNCA and PowerFM) and wishes to build on the show's foundations laid by Eusbis.

PowerFM maintains a close relationship with eNCA, co producing coverage of major events like the State of the Nation Address.

COVERAGE REVIEW: News Channels Cover Jacob Zuma's State of the Nation Address

eNCA (simulcast on eTV), ANN7, SABC News(simulcast on SABC 2), along with CNBC Africa and Parliamentary Service all covered President Jacob Zuma's State of the Nation Address live on 17 June 2014

As expected, all news channels carried Jacob Zuma's SONA address live on Tuesday, June 17th.

ANN7

The biggest disappointment of the coverage must have been ANN7. After covering the previous SONA address and elections so well, their coverage this time around really took one step back.

Because the channel ran a two hour block of non-news from 2:30pm all the way to 5pm, the channel chose to air a general news bulletin in the 5pm slot whilst the other channels all started building up to the event. Their build up then started at 5:30pm with the usual anchor hosting Ricky Naidoo, their political editor, from their studios.

ANN7's Political Aditor, Ricky  Naidoo

At 6pm, prime time anchor Chantal Rutter dros took over with her panel in the studio, and together they all just seemed to over analyse the situation and did not seem to cover the event itself decently, instead opting to just continue an in studio debate while adding a few live shots for good measure.
 Senior political correspondent Hajra Omarjee was on the ground at parliament, but in the hour before the actual speech, they did not even have a satellite (or broadband, considering the channel doesn't mind poor picture quality for on location shots) with her, instead having to have had her phone in, with the phone even losing connection at times. They really dropped the ball on this one as she should have been anchoring from Cape Town like last time around.

Considering the amount of time this channel spends on political news, I must say it is rather odd that they continue to use the Parliamentary Service, a channel all DStv subscribers have access to, as their in parliament coverage and do not receive the 'clean' feed that other channels have, so you will see the logos of the parliamentary service on ANN7, all adding to an overall messy on air presenation considering the different graphic packages.

A more beautiful picture of Cantal Rutter Dros than this I have never seen

They were, however, the last channel to still be covering the event for a few minutes after 9pm, after all other channels have ceased their broadcasts something which they should be commended for. In the 24 hour news business, a channel has 24 hours a day to fill with news, so the longer you can keep live coverage going the better.

eNCA

eNCA's coverage was anchored by Iman Rappetti live from parliament. She was yet again joined by the guys from Power FM, this time Ursula Chhikane and Tim Modise. Andrew Barnes co-anchored News Day from 1pm-4pm live from Parliament as well.

Ursula Chikane of Power FM and Top Billing covered the Red Carpet as part of eNCA's coverage of the second State of the Nation Address of 2014

Ursula provided coverage from the red carpet, something which I must say was a welcomed addition considering usually its a journo that performs this duty yet now they had someone from the glam scene as Ursula is also a Top Billing presenter. Being a Top Billing presenter added a sense of credibility to her contributions to the overall coverage, even though the high quality of her inserts speak for themselves.

Tim Modise speaking to a listener during a Power FM live crossing as part of eNCA's State of the Nation Address coverage

I am personally not a fan of the Power FM inserts. Quite frankly I dislike it.When it comes to covering live events, the best thing to do is to cover it as best you can. Now these inserts not only stops coverage of the events nearly completely, it breaks the rhythm of the broadcast every time Iman crosses over to the radio station, taking about a minute to do the whole hand over, Tim Modise to welcome viewers back (and remind them they can tune in on Power FM), and to tell them to call in as well. This process is repeated every time they hand over to the radio station. Often the listener who called in is not providing opinion that deserves to be aired on a national platform either and just drags the whole thing out, forcing viewers like myself to just easily flip up to the next channel/s as I know I wont be missing much on eNCA.

Iman hosted two analysts in their little studio at Parliament, this time not over analysing things as much as they did in the past. I really dislike the trend on  South African broadcasting of having those large vertical banners on their set seen behind the analysists with the channel logo on. It seems extremely amateur hour as viewers can see which channel they viewing from the onscreen graphics of they could have had a monitor onscreen. Instead, they opt to narrow viewers' view of the happenings outside the window behind the analysts.

eTV's coverage, which started at 7pm had onscreen sign language interpreter on the right side of the screen. The picture on eTV was terrible. Not only was the picture letterboxed with black bars at the top and bottom of the screen, it was pillarboxed as well with black bars on either side of the screen, so the whole picture onscreen had a terrible box all around the picture.

While the other channels provided non stop rolling coverage of the events, eNCA found it okay to take a great load of ad breaks during their coverage, exculding the speech itself, vital time that could have been used to provide coverage. This included parts of the coverage not seen on eTT, so they were not forced to take so many ad breaks. At 8:24 pm, they found it in themselves to take a SIX MINUTE ad break and another four minute one at the top of the next hour, time the other channels used for live coverage.

SABC News
By far the channel with the best coverage of the event, SABC News' coverage was anchored by Vuyo Mvoku and Leanne Manas live from their studio at Parliament.

Leanne Manas and Vuyo Mvoku anchored SABC News' (simulcast on SABC 2) coverage of the State of the Ntaion Address

They got the mix right of keeping analysis to a minimal and live rolling commentary to a maximum right. Most of the time during the build up, the anchors' and guests' voices were just heard and not seen as they opted to keep pictures focussed on what was happening an explained to viewers what was going on and what they were seeing, along with naming people as they came in case viewers might not have known who they were. They had more reporters on the ground than any other news channel as well.

For some or another reason, SABC News had their camera on eNCA's Ursula as she interviewed Mmusi Maimane for quite a while

After the speech, they got response from all the major opposition parties before interviewing ANC members, something that has to be admired from the apparent voicepiece of the ANC.

Programming Note: All Local News Channels to Cover Jacob Zuma's State of the Nation Address

As expected, ANN7, eNCA, SABC News, Parliamentary Service and CNBC Africa will all be carrying Jacob Zuma's State of the Nation Address live tonight at 7pm.

Build up starts before then with eNCA's coverage anchored from Cape Town by Iman Rappetti and Ursula from Top Billing on the Red Carpet, along with live crossings to Power FM as they listen to call ins from various listeners.

SABC News has Leanne Manas and Vuyo Mvoku anchoring from their Parliamentary studios in Cape Town.

ANN7 has Hajra Omarjee on the scene, along with other reporters, though they will not be as in depth as before.

Uncut coverage will, as always, be provided on the Parliamentary Service, DStv 408, if you okay with below par picture and sound quality.

CNBC Africa will be providing live coverage from 7pm-9pm..

Ann7, SABC News and eNCA are all streaming coverage live on their websites, or Youtube channels

Mandela News Coverage: eNews/eNCA

When I look at the coverage provided by this news organisation, I cannot decide on whether it is a hit or a miss.
This is because, yes, they provide exceptional coverage on Mandela's death, but when they go into documentary mode, they do that for way too long, forgetting to keep the people informed.

Their coverage has been nonstop on both eNCA and eTV (along with Livestation outside of SA and free on their official website and Youtube) with only a promo thrown in now and then.

Since the unfortunate news broke, Sally Burdett coverd late Thursday Night and also the overnight hours. According to Iman Rappeti's Twitter account, she was live at 3am. She along with Jeremy covered through thee standard breakfast hours. The usual breakfast team of Dan Moyane and Uveka Rangappa covered 10am-3pm, followed by Joanne Jospeh that spent the next three hours solo, before handing back over to Jeremy Maggs and Iman Rappetti who did double duty on Friday.

I was quite surprised that by 11:58 Friday morning, eNCA had a special set constructed and did their coverage from there. Their graphics also changed to have more Earthy colours at some point in the morning.

Special Note: I was so surprised to see them show Debora Patta in one of their inserts (considering the manner in which she left) and was quite interesting to see her being billed as an 'Investigative Journalist' and not Former Head of eNews or Anchor in Chielf or any special title that she had whilst with them.

Though their coverage simulcasted on eTV once more overnight, I was quite surprised that they did not continue live coverage, rather opting for documentaries.

Coverage continued on Saturday, where Joanne Josephs did her usual hours followed by Duduzile Ramele. Iman Rappetti picked up at the usual hours of NewsNight.

Overall, not too bad from them though I expected a bit more