eNCA Experiment with 4pm "General News" Slot

eNCA seems to be doing some experimenting with its 4pm-6pm generic news bulletin anchored by Gareth Edwards.

What was initially through the years just a standard news anchor in seat reading the news bulletin is becoming increasingly a more interesting and exciting bulletin to watch now that Gareth Edwards anchors it. Gareth follows in the steps of the likes of current News Night anchor Iman Rappetti,current Morning News Todday and SA news legend Dan Moyane, Mid Morning presenter (and a former prime time anchor at SABC3) JoAnne Joseph and former prime time anchor Nikiwe Bikitsha in carrying the slot. By just looking at those names, one can see that the 4pm slot has historically been anchored by either people that have had great things happen in their career before taking the slot, or were promoted to greater things following their stint in the slot. It seems as if Gareth is destined for the latter.

(c) eNCA

But back on topic. Unlike the anchors before him, Gareth no longer just sits in the corner set reading the news, he actually walks across the whole studio, starting at the main desk, where he reads the headlines and previews what is to come, before moving to the larger screen behind him, all shown with more-dramatic-than-usual camera work.

(c) eNCA

Consistently throughout the two-hour bulletin he referred to the show as Afternoon News (On Twitter, #AfternoonNews), which is interesting because, other than the channels three 'main' news bulletins (Morning News Today, News Day and News Night), no other slot on the channel is referred to by a name, only labelled 'General News' on the DStv i-Plate and as eNCA by the anchors. Could the bulletin's name officially be renamed Afternoon News? We will wait and see.

One thing that has always stood out about the 4pm slot was its ability to attract guests to discuss stories, often guests of a high caliber. With all the changes taking place, this is the one part of the show that has stayed true to its legacy. Friday they had both Nickolaus Bauer ( who discussed the harrassment he went through at the hands of SAPS police officers at a rally. This story eventually crept its way to the top of the headlines later during prime time) and Toby Shapshack( who discussed a new patent of Apple's. Interestingly enough, he has a tech show on another channel, CNBC Africa, but appeared on a competitor instead).

The bulletin also had a business report in its last half hour presented by prime time business anchor Arabile Gumede, who has received a considerable amount of criticism since joining the channel.

Gareth Edwards and Macmfarlene Moleli Takes over from nikiwe Bikitsha

As previously reported, Nikiwe Bikitsha has left eNCA, eventually revealing that she chose to return to her roots in radio at Cape Talk/Radio 786.

Courtesy os the Twitter account of Nikiwe Bikitsha

This has left two voids in the eNCA schedule: 4-6pm and 7pm on eNews Prime Time.

Courtesy: enca.com

On eNCA, it was midmorning anchore gareth Edwards that stepped up to take the 4pm-6pm slot. This is his umpteenth slot change since joining the channel at launch when it was still called eNews Channel, initially as sports anchor, then late night/fill in anchor, then mid morning anchor solo, then breakfast show anchor along with Ayanda Allie Payne when the channel rebranded to eNCA, then again demoted back to midmorning anchor along with Eleni Giokos (ironically, to fill a void left by Mac Moleli who had left the channel after being demoted from the breakfast slot to make way for Gareth in the morning), then when Eleni left eNCA for Bloomberg he was joined by JoAnne Josephs, who had came to mid morning so that Nikiwe could get the 4pm slot. Now, instead of moving JoAnne back to 4pm, they leaving her in the morning (which could be considered a major responsibility as most breaking news happens during that slot, eg. Parliamentary sessions, press conferences, marches, court cases, etc.), they gining the slot to Gareth, who has consistently shown why he is the channels only self made 'news stars' that weren't brought from elsewhere.

The energy, chemistry and passion displayed by the mid morning duo of JoAnne Josephs and Gareth Edwards I one that I have enjoyed so much that I am a firm believer that these two could anchor a quality primetime slot in the future. Such a pity they will be broken up

Another responsibility of the 4pm anchor is that he immediately becomes the go-to person if they need a fill in for the prime time shows eNCA News Night and eNews Prime Time.

Courtesy enca.com, because they don't seem to delete old anchor pages

On eTV, Macfarlane Molelie will be taking over for Nikiwe. A former breakfast show host on eNCA, he left the channel a few months after being relegated to the less-watched and longer mid morning show. He is back with the group now, but on eTV as the anchor of the most watched English news bulletin in South Africa , eNews Prime Time. He will be anchoring on Mondays and Wednesdays, alternating with long time anchor Pat Pillai who will be doing Tuesdays and Thursdays. The Late Edition and weekend editions of eNews Prime Time (along with holidays) will continue to originate from Cape Town with the likes of Robin Smith (who, too, is a former eNCA anchor) at the helm.

Let's see how long eNews can go without having to shuffle anchors yet again.

Nikiwe Bikitsha has left eNCA

eNCA Senior Anchor, Nikiwe Bikitsha, has signed off for the final time this past Friday, February 28th. She broke the news herself earlier in the week. There had been no rumblings of her leaving and in  the past few months she even gor promoted to anchor eNews Prime Time in addition to her anchoring duties on eNCA.

Nikiwe Bikitsha joined what was then known as the e News Channel on the 11th of May 2009 as the female co anchor on their flagship broadcast, News Night, replacing outgoing anchor, Redi Direko, who stepped down citing burnout. She joined eNCA from CNBC Africa and before then, was a breakfast host on SAFM. She was also a commentator for the Mail and Guardian, though she returned a few moths ago. 

In 2012 she took a leave of absence from the eNews Channel to take up the prestigious Hubert Humphrey Fellowship. This left co anchor Jeremy Maggs anchoring the show solo for well over a week, before the channel decided to move then breakfast show anchor Iman Rappetti into the slot temporarily (prompting Ayanda-Allie Paine to fill in her slot). However, the duo received such warm reviews for their on screen chemistry, that they remained the News Night pair since. 

Upon returning well educated from her scholarship, Nikiwe Bikitsha found herself working for a channel that has relaunched and changed its name from e News Channel to eNCA since she left, with a new anchor in what used to be her slot, and the addition of exciting new anchor Eleni Giokos meant that every slot from 6am to 9pm was choc-a-bloc with two anchors, leaving no place for Nikiwe. During her first few months back, the newly returned "Senior Anchor," as she was tagged on screen found herself without a slot, instead doing 'special reports.' However, soon the likes of Ayanda Allie-Paine, Eleni Giokos and Mac Moleli all left the channel, and she was given the 4pm slot in what was yet another channel lineup shuffle.

Nikiwe just never seemed happy in this slot to me, always coming across as dry and uninterested in the new slot, a far cry of the super enthusiastic and full of energy anchor she had been just a year or so prior before leaving for the scholarship. I often thought it might just be the format of a solo anchored late afternoon slot that was just dull, but whenever JoAnne Josephs filled in for, JoAnne seemed to make the slot feel so exciting. 

Nikiwe was also recently promoted to anchor eNews Prime Time after anchor Sally Burdett received a promotion in the group to head of anchors (which I must say seems to come across as a very messy job these days). She seemed dry anchoring the most watched Englsih news Bulletin in the country as well. 

Nikiwe most recently co anchored special coverage of the events surrounding Nelson Mandela's death. However, now that I look back, it is really interesting that she was not used more effectively during the SONA coverage (actually, not used at all outside of a normal role) which could actually be read as a sign of her leaving.

Nikiwe was studying when she joined the channel, studied while there and says she will study now that she is leaving (along with working in business and doing freelance work). Nothing like someone always bettering themselves. Here's to Nikiwe, once upon a time one of the fastest rising stars in local news. 

State of the Nation Coverage Plans for eNCA, eTV, SABC News, SABC2, CNBC Africa and ANN7

This Thursday, the 13th of February is the annual State of the Nation Address by President Jacob Zuma. This is going to be an interesting one to watch as it is an election year and also to hear which issues he will address and how to address them.

©SABC News

For the first time ever, we have more than just one general news channel that will be covering the event (along with the fininacials). Since President Zuma made a smart move by moving the event to prime time where normal South Africans can see it, the channels really went all out with their coverage.



eNCA will cover the event throughout the week as part of their regulars cheduled program. Their actual coverage starts at 4pm in Cape Town at Parliament (immediately after the Cape Town broadcasted News Day). Senior anchors Iman Rapetti (NewsNight) and Andrew Barnes (NewsDay) will anchor live from Cape Town with the likes of Nikiwe Bikitsha contributing. This is Andrew's umpteenth SONA considering that he is Cape Town based, with it being Iman's second, after last year. Before that Nikiwe was the female anchor but could not last year due to her studying (I still cannot see how those studies benefitted her career).  Jeremy Maggs usually does a review panel from Joburg at 9pm.
eTV will also broadcast the address from 7pm to 8:30pm. As such both their soaps (Rhythm City and Scandal, respectively) will broadcast from 6pm, pre empting the 6pm Sotho bulletin.
EDITORS COMMENTARY: I remember last years state of the Nation address coverage on eTV and eNCA quite well. It was Valentines Day, the same day Oscar Pistorius murdered his girlfriend. As such eNCA really wanted to gain interest from an international audience who they just recently reached through Sky in the UK and LiveStation online. They did this through providing rolling coverage of the event with great repetition anchored by Deborah Patta with input from the highly talented Karyn  Maughn. This coverage did not even mention the SONA which happened at the same time. The SONA address was covered on eTV, but because they only wanted to show it until 8:30pm and Zuma stopped talking at about 8:25, they just wrapped up, wasting the resources that were brought to Cape Town including anchors, reporters and analysts.



It goes without saying that the public broadcaster will cover the even live as well. Coverage begins at 5pm on the SABC News Channel (DStv 404), repeated at midnight. This will be a full team effort  and ends at 9pm. This also makes things interesting to see what will broadcast on SABC 3 at 6:30pm  which is usually a simulcast with the SABC News coverage at that hour and also that some talents used for the 6:30pm broadcast will be used for SONA. At 9pm a sports review broadcast, which will be pre empted at 8:30pm will be broadcast at 9pm before returning to regularly scheduled programming. This is an odd choice considering that a more appropriate Business Report with Francis Herd is also being pre empted, but wont be shown.
Of course SONA coverage will be shown on SABC 2 as well, from 6pm to 8:30pm, shifting that evening's 7de Laan to a Friday double bill. At 8:30pm we have fifteen minute bulletins in Afrikaans and then Sotho back to back.
 

ANN7 will be broadcasting the event live as well. it is not clear whether they will broadcast from location but will indeed have a few reporters there. Those likely working the even include Chantal Rutter Dros and analyst Hajra Omarjee.

The Financial Networks will also be providing live coverage.

CNBC Africa has live coverage for 2 hours from 7pm.

Summit TV is unclear at this moment.

Spoilt for choice indeed, but if you prefer the speech and no fluff and analysis, you can of course get the live and raw feed with no flashy anything or fancy editing on the Parliamentary Service (DStv 408, surprised it is not on StarSat yet). This is where you go if you want your coverage anchored by the speaker of the house and not some journalist.

eNews Prime Time not Prime for etv? Part 2

I do understand that at 7pm the group broadcasts FOUR bulletins (eNews Prime Time on eTV, News Night on eNCA, their African News Bulletin for e Africa, eNuus op Kyknet) and has to get ready for an 8pm Zulu bulletin on eKasi+ and 9pm extended African bulletin,  but is it fair that the most watched one gets the least attention? That it no longer has stability?

I mean this musical chairs of anchors (and now locations as well) really makes what is actually a very successful show seem unstable when compared to the competition on SABC 3 where there is a solid 2 person anchor duo, which is their most days wekdays, a business anchor and a sports anchor, all dedicated to this show only and not on eTV where both the anchor and sports anchor are new on a daily basis.

eNews Prime Time not Prime enough for eTV?

Image courtesy of www.etv.co.za

eNews Prime Time is by far the most watched English News Bulletin in the country, more than doubling its only competiton's (SABC 3's hour long bulletin which starts at 18:30) numbers on a daily basis .

However, it seems as if eTV and eNCA are really not giving much attention to what is definitly its  most watched bulletin of the day.

As you can see, the picture in this article is that of FORMER anchor Sally Burdett which I found on etv's official website. This was the only relevant picture I could find as others show even older anchors and older logos. [If you do not know, Sally left her position as eNews Prime Time anchor to take up the position of Story Editor & Head of Anchors at eNCA since th latter half of this year. She has done the odd anchor job on eNCA every now and then, like anchoring the evening of Nelson Mandela's passing].

However, since she left this position to become head of anchors, there really has been no solid anchor in this slot.

Nikiwe Bikitsha, who left News Night two years ago to complete a 10 month leadership,academic and professional development programme known as the Fulbright Hubert Humphrey fellowship in the U.S for mid career professionals deemed leaders in their field. However when she she did not return to News Night (Where Iman Rappetti hold the co anchor title now), sh instead picked up the 4 o'clock to 6 slot and later added e News Prime Time to it as well.
First question: Is it normal that the anchor of your most watched show is someone just doing double duty after another show?

It doesn't end there. As this well learned person, Nikiwe is the group's go to anchor for on location reporting, having reported from the Eastern Cape during the period of Mandela's passing,  Pretoria for Politics and Davos for the World Economic Forum. This then leads to the obvious problem that now you have two shows that no longer have an anchor, e News Prime Time and the 4pm-6pm slot on eNCA. Usually, Jo-Anne Josephs filled in on both (she is, after all a former prime time anchor at SABC 3 before joining the then e News Channel).

But it doesn't end there. JoAnne these days are seen more on her actual slot (9am-1pm) alongside Gareth Edwards, leaving 7 pm empty, again.

On Tuesday, Jremy Maggs filled in at 4pm (and eventually did double duty on his usual slot to 9pm). However, due to obvious reasons, he cannot be on e News Prime Time. So who comes in? Junior anchor (and occasional fill in at 4pm or mid morning on eNCA) Duduzile Ramela. I have nothing against her, but I do think that it should NOT be a junior anchor anchoring your most watched show.

Wednesday was another story (because these people are really pushing limits). Cape Town did Prime Time (News Day's Andrew Barnes anchoring this time). As you know Cape Town only does the weekend, public holidays and late night news on eTV (and News Day on eNCA, simulcast for 30 minutes on eTV).