Abigail Visagie [Finally] Shifts to Vuka Africa, Juliet Newell Takes Over On Express Lunch

Abigail Visagie and Peter van Onselen having fun on the ANN7 Set [pic from @AbigailVisagie_]

Abigail Visagie has now finally made the jump from ANN7's Express Lunch to Vuka Africa, where she now anchors alongside senior anchor Peter van Onselen between 6am and 9am.

The move comes just over a week since the move was first announced, then delayed for a week, before finally happening today, March 9th.

The move also makes Vuka Africa ANN7's only co anchored news bulletin, as everything else is solo anchored.

Vuka Africa was, at inception, a two anchor show with Gerry Rantseli Eldson as the main anchor that did all the interviews while Avumile Qongqo read the headlines. Then, as we all know, Gerry left and Avumile became a full time reporter and Vuka Africa became a straight news bulletin anchored by Peter van Onselen.

With Abigail in the mix, it is expected that there will be more 'soft' news topics on the programme's schedule.

Juliet Newell now takes over Abigail's old slot of Express Lunch, and keeps her own slot, a 30 minute bulletin at 2, as well. Karabo Yibe stays in her late afternoon slot.


 

ANN7 LINEUP SHAKEUP: Abigail Visagie To Vuka Africa

In an unexpected move, ANN7 (DStv 405) will be shaking up its early day schedule by moving current Express Lunch (and Mid Morning Prime) anchor, Abigail Visagie, up to the breakfast show, Vuka Africa.

At Vuka Africa, which airs daily between 6 am and 9am, she will sit alongside longtime Vuka Africa anchor, Peter van Onselen. This now means that Vuka Africa becomes the only ANN7 show to feature two anchors as hosts (which will be interesting to see how the squeezed behind that odd table).

Though both of them may be pushing the move as if it is a promotion, what is actually going on is that Abigail now clears the lunchtime slot, meaning that there will now no longer be anchors that anchor only a mere half an hour show due to the channel having too many weekday anchors and not enough time.

Abigail has, of course, been with ANN7 since inception as one of the many young females the channel had try out on air and has moved around slots a few times before settlingon what is now known as Express Lunch.

It is ecpected that Juliet Newell would be announced as the new Express Lunchhost, though that is not set in stone yet.

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.

CONFIRMED: Nzinga Qunta the New Anchor of ANN7 Prime

Nzinga Qunta has confirmed via Twitter that she is now the permanent anchor of ANN7's ANN7 Prime. The tweet can be seen below:

Yes :) "@ThembiMrototo: Are you there permanently now? RT @NzingaQ: So exciting anchoring Prime :)"
— Nzinga Qunta (@NzingaQ) February 16, 2015

She has been anchoring the show for two weeks now, currently her third, which included doing the channel's State of the Nation Address Coverage last Thursday.


Nzinga has been with ANN7 since the start of the channel and has previously been the anchor of the weekend edition of the show.


There is currently no word yet on what now happens to Juliet Newell who joined the channel in December and was even announced as the anchor of ANN7 Prime, replacing Chantal Rutter Dros who departed in December, but then lost that position barely a month later. At the moment, she does anchor a mere 30 minutes of news at 2pm on the channel, but that cannot last too long.


Nzinga, who is studying this year while being a Monday to Friday anchor at ANN7, now becomes the youngest anchor in South African prime time news. She is also the only anchor in prime time that is NOT a journalist, as she pointed out a while ago on Twitter, but based on her on screen presentation, one would not even notice.

What On Earth? Juliet Newell Now Anchoring Afternoon News?

In late December 2014, Juliet Newell joined ANN7 and anchored the channel's prime time bulletin ANN7 Prime. In mid January this year, she was named the official anchor of ANN7 Prime.

But now, for some reason, she has not anchored ANN7 Prime for well over a week, with Nzinga Qunta taking up that slot.

So where is Juliet? Anchoring the 2pm slot of news (which is an unbranded straight news bulletin), Nzinga's old slot.

Nzinga Qunta, who has been with ANN7 since inception, has anchored various slots over the year and a few months that the channel has been on air, including weekend prime time, before settling in the 2pm slot.

However, she decided to go back to university this year and has been off air for a while before reappearing as the Prime anchor last Monday

At this point, the channel has not stated whether the timeslot swap is permanent or not to accomodate Nzinga's studies, in the same way they accomodated Chanté Jantjies' studies by moving her off a daily slot to weekend breakfast anchor.

Juliet is still featured on the promotional material for ANN7 Prime, even though she has not appeared on the show in over a week.

Though it is not uncommon for news channels to shift anchors around (I last recall it happening at eNCA when Joanne Joseph was moved from Afternoon News to the midmorning slot), it is odd when it happens to the Prime Time anchor. Imagine Jeremy Maggs all of a sudden just starts anchoring eNCA's News Day with some other anchor takong his slot on News Night without eNCA stating why it is occuring.

Either way, viewers can see Nzinga Qunta is enjoying being the youngest prime time anchor on South African news. She smiles wider than she ever did before during the opening of ANN7 Prime, though I don't remember ever seeing her smile before and she does what Juloet doesn't: promote the heck out of the show on Twitter before it airs, informing her over 18 000 followers about who she is about to interview, something Juliet never did.

It's Official: Juliet Newell is the new ANN7 Prime Anchor

A few weeks ago I published an article asking whether Juliet Newell will be ANN7's permanent new anchor for ANN7 Prime after she started anchoring the show at the start of the festive season, though in rotation with other anchors.

Well, it seems as if the answer to that question is now yes.

Juliet Newell is now featured in promotional material for ANN7 Prime, appearing alongside Vuka Africa's Petet van Onselen and Express Lunch's Abigail Visage.

Juliet replaces Chantal Rutter Dros who anchored her final show on December 3rd 2014.

Juliet is a former anchor of etv's breakfast show and has also anchored on what is now know as BDTV.

In addition to that, she also has acting experience and is a former presenter at the Home Channel as well.

She now joins Peter Stemmet, who is ANN7 Prime's sports anchor (himself a former eNews guy). A business anchor is yet to be named after Tirrin Cosway departed from the channel last year (though my money is on former CNBC Africa anchor Natassia Arendse who herself has started anchoring on ANN7 in recent weeks).

Juliet Newell to ANN7 Prime?

Juliet Newell on ANN7 Prime

For the past few weeks Juliet Newell has been anchoring ANN7's Prime on an on and off basis, alternating with the likes of Edwin Kgaswe and Gladys Sithole over the festive season.

But unlike Edwin Kgaswe and Gladys Sithole, Juliet has not been a member of ANN7 before she started appearing on the show.

If you are unfamiliar with Juliet Newell, her show reel includes anchoring eTV's then breakfast show, Morning Edition, from 2006, and also at Summit TV (today known as Business Day TV, DStv 412) before that. She also hosted various shows at the SABC throughout the 1990's including an educational show, an environmental show and also a sports show. She also has a rather impressive acting resumé, including a French series and Generations among others.

It is unkown whether she would become ANN7 Prime's permanent new anchor, or whether she is just freelancing at the channel, as no information has been made available (and she is not exactly on social media either).

ANN7 Prime at the moment does not have an announced permanent anchor after the departure of Chantal Rutter Dros at the start of the month.

But Juliet would be a nice addition to the ANN7 lineup if her resumé  is anything to go by, especially considering the recent drainage of experienced on-air talents from the channel.