Chantal Rutter Dros, the anchor of ANN7’s Prime bulletin,
and face of the channel, is leaving the channel after just more than a year.
She anchors her last bulletin for the channel tonight,
December 3rd.
She joined the channel at inception and, along with Gerry
Rantseli-Eldson, were the ‘faces’ of the channel that features mainly young,
inexperienced on air talent. Gerry left after just a few months, and now
Chantal is headed for the door as well.
The channel has constantly been going through major changes,
and even greater problems, but one thing that has been constant was that when
you tune in to ANN7 between 7pm and 9pm, Chantal would always be there
providing a very high quality news bulletin.
This comes as a major blow to the channel that was just starting
to find its groove and settle on a decent presentation. Though its on ait
talents have been improving lately, no one at the channel is exactly good
enough to be put in prime time.
Chantal also
co-hosted the channel’s South African of the Year Awards earlier this year with
Bonang Matheba, which was greatly praised by viewers.
Her departure is yet another in what has been a slew of
departures from the channel’s more senior off air staff, who include Clintin
Magoor, that worked mainly as an assignments editor for the channel.
She cites ‘personal reasons’ for leaving the channel and
plans to take December off. When asked what her future plans are beyond that,
she says she has yet to decide.
She tendered her resignation around November 24th, around the same time Asanda Magaqa left the channel.
It is expected that her main fill in anchor, sports anchor
Peter Stemmet, will be at the helm of ANN7 Prime until a permanent replacement
is named.
Some tweets on the departure:
Michael Appel, who she did a lot of field reporting with, most notably the Oscar trial:
An ANN7 parody account:
ANN7 Prime' s business news anchor, Tirrin Cosway:
