eNCA announes new News Night anchors, tweaks schedule

New News Night anchors, Cathy Mohlahlana and Vuyo Mvoko

eNCA yesterday announced that Cathy Mohlahlana and Vuyo Mvoko will take over anchoring duties on News Night.

The two have been screen testing together since April during Cathy's long running midmorning slot.

On the opportunity, Mvoko said, "Cathy and I hope to rise to the challenge of telling the story as it unfolds."

Both have been tweeting and replying to congratulations messages from colleagues and the public since the announcement was made. It is perhaps their social media presence that will be their greatest asset going in to prime time. Both are perceived highly favourably online, with Cathy having over 45 thousand followers and Vuyo with 47 thousand followers on Twitter.

Mvoko is a former contributing editor at SABC News and actually hosted a prime time news show at the start of 2016. This show was pulled from the air after Mvoko did an entire show centered on the State of Capture report. He left the SABC not too long after as part of the #SABC8 and started freelancing with eNCA earlier this year.

Cathy is a long time eNCA reporter and anchor, occupying the midmorning slot since 2014. During the election that year, Cathy was one of the channel's main reporters from the IEC's elections result centre. The midmorning slot has been where most news breaks in South Africa and Cathy has anchored coverage solo during many major breaking news stories including the Oscar Pistorius trial, protests, and of course, as is now the norm, countless press conferences.

Overall, this is the perfect choice by the channel with both being highly regarded by the public, highly competent at anchoring and coming across with a wonderful screen presence.

Other changes to the channel include longrunning News Night anchor, Jeremy Maggs moving to News Day (1pm, eNCA) solo, with the current news Day team, Shahan Ramkissoon and Michelle Craig moving to Cathy's old 9am to 1pm slot.

Everything else remains unchanged.

eNCA moves News Day to Johannesburg

Starting this week, eNCA moved its long-running Cape Town based news bulletin, News Day, to Johannesburg.

This comes as the news channel continues to scale back its Cape Town operations in order to control costs. Just last week the channel laid off long-time Cape Town based anchor, Amy McIver, who co-anchored the news bulletin for the last few months. Others based in the Cape Town bureau have been told to either relocate to Johannesburg or be retrenched.

News Day, which is older than even the channel it broadcasts on, started airing on 4 October 2007 as Lunchtime Live based in Cape Town at a time when e.tv was still expanding news hours on the free to air a channel. Being based in Cape Town meant that the anchors could simply drive, or even walk, to parliament to cover events happening there.

Moving the bulletin to Johannesburg also means that not one of the three South African news channels have news bulletins originating from anywhere outside that city. The move also means that the handover from Cathy Mohlahlana to News Day will be much more smoother as breaking news in her slot often overran into News Day's slot, which required a long ad break to get the Cape Town anchors up.

It is unclear how the change affects News Day's actual anchor, Michelle Craig, who is currently on maternity leave. Would she move to Johannesburg to coanchor the bulletin with Shahan Ramkissoon, who is anchoring it solo now, or would she simply go back to being a weekend anchor.

Amy MacIver leaves eNCA/eTV

Amy MacIver announced that she would be leaving eNCA today, the same day she actually signs off for the last time. eTV, lacking taste, did not even mention beforehand that she was leaving, in contrast to the hero's send off Andrew Barnes received.

The reason for her leaving? She was retrenched from the organisation which continues to scale back its Cape Town operations.

The emotional Amy shed a tear at the bottom of the first half hour of News Day when she said goodbye to her eTV viewers for the last time (the first half hour of the lunchtime broadcast is simulcat on eTV). That is where she got her start with the organisation way back in 2005. When she joined eTV in 2005, there was no eNCA yet, just the news bulletins on eTV, back when eTV cared about news. She regularly did the Early Edition news bulletins (back when it was in English), the Late Edition news bulletin (back when eTV cared about news) and the weekend editions of eNews Prime Time (and subsequently eNews Direct Weekends), all of which originated from Cape Town.

Just last month she was temporarily promoted from weekend anchor to News Day anchor, filling in for Michelle Craig who is still on maternity leave. In 2015 she also produced and presented eNCA's magazine show, Earth Watch. Occasionally on big news events, like on election day, she would do reporting as well.

Michelle Craig Replaces Bhavna Singh On News Day

Michelle Craig is now officially the female co anchor on eNCA's News Day. This follows the sudden departure of Bhavna Singh from the channel after more than five years.

Michelle is of course not new to eNCA viewers. She has been a Cape Town based reporter and anchor for a while now, anchoring the now cancelled eNews Late Edition and eNews Prime Time on weekends for eTV, while acting as a fill in on News Day when both Andrew Barnes and Bhavna Singh were out.

Uncle Thinus is reporting that the cuts at eNCA is due to financially tough times that the channel is currently experiencing and that when an Bhavna's contract came up for renewal, the country's most watched news channel simply opted to not renew. 

Meanwhile, Bhavna just doesn't seem to be adjusting to life without covering the news. Though she may no longer be on television regularly, she live tweeted today's vote of no confidence motion that played out in parliament.