Errol Barnett leaving CNN

CNN this past week announced that Europe, Middle East and Africa breakfast show host, Errol Barnett, is leaving the organisation.

Prior to hosting CNN Newsroom, Barnett was a correspondent based out of the channel's Johannesburg bureau and presented the magazine show Inside Africa.

Barnett leaves CNN to become a Washington-based correspondent at the American broadcast network, CBS, the same channel Debora Patta works at. On the move, Barnett said that he is 'moving from one dream job to another.'

No announcement has yet been named on who will take over from Barnett, who co anchors the 8am-10am (CAT) slot with Rosemary CHurch.

eNCA expands its online audio offering greatly

The country's most watched news channel, eNCA (DStv 403), continues to expand its ever growing online presence. This time, they have heavily grown their podcast offering beyond just the recently launched Moneyline podcasts.

eNCA Radio
The first in the series that was launched is eNCA Radio, which is very similar in structure to a news bulletin that broadcasts at the top and bottom of the hour on many radio stations. The newsreader on the podcast is eNCA's Deputy Online Editor, Lynne O'Connor, who prior to joining eNCA was a news anchor at radio news brand, Eyewitness News.
The approximately three and a half minute bulletin is also downloadable, with a size slightly less than a megabyte, perfect for on the go consumption.
eNCA Radio is uploaded weekday mornings.

Amabookabooka
Relatively long running podcast, Amabookabooka, now joins eNCA's podcast offering. Not much has changed now that it has made the jump from iTunes to eNCA, still focussing on books and their authors.

Judge for Yourself
Like the Moneyline podcasts, Judge for Yourself is just the audio version of the television show, with the commercial breaks removed.

All in all, it seems like eNCA is now a fully fledged competitor in the podcast environment. Lets see where it goes from here

Comedy Central shakes up late night satire block

Comedy Central (DStv 122) has made major changes to its  satirical news block that airs Tuesday through Friday from 23:30 CAT.

Firstly, The Tonight Show with Trevor Noah's late night airing is pushed back from 23:30 to 23:55.

Next, the daily airing of The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore has been axed completely, and is not replaced with the less traditional @Midnight hosted by Chris Hardwick.

Why they could not just air all three is anyone's guess. They are, after all, produced in house.

Arabile Gumede leaving eNCA for Bloomberg

eNCA's prime time business news anchor, Arabile Gumede, will be leaving the domestic news channel at the end of May.

Gumede joined eNCA from CNBC Africa in 2013 to fill the void left by Francis Herd who jumped ship to the then new SABC news Channel (DStv 404). He holds a BComm Accounting degree from the University of Johannesburg.

At eNCA, Gumede primarily anchored the business news segments on the prime time News Night (and by virtue, the business news segments on the second hour of Afternoon News). In 2014 he became the Friday anchor, and fill in anchor, of the channel's first daily dedicated business news programme, Moneyline. On days when major economic stories broke, like rate announcements, Gumede would provide live coverage from the reserve bank and also file reports that aired throughout the day on eNCA and etv's news bulletins.

Since joining eNCA, Gumede has built up quite the following on social networks, providing financial news and advice to his over 12 000 Twitter followers, including his savings plan at the beginning of the year where you start by saving R10 a week then increasing from there (or the other way round), something that gained quite a bit of traction of the social network. In fact, Gumede has something most in tv news do not: naturally fitting in on the 'cool' Twitter where younger, more trendy people are in his social circle, something newsers by default have a hard time reaching.

He is taking a big gamble by jumping to Bloomberg. In 2013, Eleni Giokos too made the jump from eNCA to Bloomberg (under its then new division, Bloomberg TV Africa). However, not too long after that, the entire division was shut and Eleni found herself freelancing in South Africa before being picked up by CNN last year.

A replacement for Gumede has not been announced yet. He leaves behind Siki Mgabadeli who is eNCA's Senior Business Anchor (though she is not really seen that much outside of Moneyline).

Gumede leaves eNCA at the end of May.

Ratings updates: News channels for April

Courtesy once again of Patrick Conroy's Twitter account, here are the viewership share for the news channels broadcasting on the DStv platform.

Just a few observations:

• It seems as if the competition between UK news channel, Sky News, and South African news channel, ANN7, for third place is over now, with Sky solidly in third place. However, ANN7 is up decently from the prior month. 
• Month on month, BBC World News' audience share plummeted by 40%, which is rather sharp.
• The wall to wall American election coverage is paying off greatly for CNN, pulling ahead of the other two international news channels, BBC World News and Al Jazeera decently.

As always, when it comes to analysing these figures, it reflects the slice of the pie and not the size of the pie itself. 

CNNi adding new daily American politics show to its schedule

CNNi (DStv 401) today announced that the channel will be adding a new American politics news show to its schedule.

The show, to be anchored by Congressional correspondent, Kate Bolduan, will be called 'State of the race' and will air daily at 8:30pm CAT on CNNi. It will broadcast from New York.

“This has already been a race like no other, and it is clear there is a lot more to come,” said Bolduan. “Every night we’re going to bring our international audiences along for the ride – offering the very latest developments from the campaign trail and giving them the inside scoop of what is really going on within the campaigns and in the minds of American vote

'State of the Race' joins the channels now growing coverage on the race to the white house, which includes the daily 'Wolf' (7pm CAT) and the weekly Political Mann (various air times).

The channel has not said what will happen to Zain Asher, who previously anchored the timeslot.

Sunday Times reports Multichoice is ready to drop ANN7

The Sunday Times this past week reported that Multichoice is planning on cutting domestic news channel ANN7.

According to the Times, the reasons for the apparent cut include viewer complaints, failing to communicate changes to their schedule, not sticking to their schedule and poor quality broadcasting.

The reason of them not sticking to their schedule is rather silly. It is a NEWS channel. They are expected to provide rolling coverage of breaking news. Due to the increased amount of live events and breaking news occurring in recent months, the channel has even streamlined their schedule, cutting the 5:30pm entertainment news slot and the late night GameOn! broadcast. The only non traditional news program on the schedule that can be preempted, GameOn! at 6:30pm, is at a rather odd time in case of breaking news but anyone that watches a foreign channel like CNN knows how badly their rigid schedule is preempted for breaking news so it should be expected that South African channels should be allowed the same freedom.

The axe is alleged to swing over the Midrand-based channel in August, when their 3 year contract with Multichoice is up for renewal.

Due to the nature of the South African pay tv market, when Multichoice axes you, you close your doors for good as there is no other platform capable of supporting a capital intensive operation like a news channel on their own.

Multichoice earlier today replied to the Sunday Times'  report, stating that the claims made by the paper are untrue and incorrect.

eNCA launches Moneyline podcasts

In what is a first for a South African news channel, eNCA (DStv 401) has launched a daily podcast of their Moneyline bulletin.

The  Moneyline podcasts, which are freely available for streaming on their site, are essentially the daily Moneyline broadcasts, which premieres weekdays at 8:30pm on the channel, with the commercial breaks removed, so you can listen to the show in twenty two minutes as opposed to watching it in 30.

Unlike most podcasts, like those on CliffCentral, the Moneyline podcasts are interestingly not available for download and later consumption, so a live internet connection would always be needed.

The launch of the Moneyline podcast follows just a few months after eNCA launched eNews Direct on etv and made those news bulletins available in full and for free on their Yourtube channel.

http://www.enca.com/money/listen-moneyline-podcasts

Richard Quest in South Africa for INDABA2016

Courtesty :@AbeikuSantana (Twitter)

In case you have been watching Quest means Business (CNNi, 10pm, DStv 401) and wondering where regular anchor, Richard Quest, has been all week, well, he is here in SOuth Africa, attending the Tourism Indaba taking place in the country.

Today, May 7th, he moderated a panel at the Indaba, which was also carried live on eNCA (DStv 403).

On his experience in the country, he tweeted about how he was enjoying the experience and that he felt 'totally safe' in the country. Quest is actually a frequent traveler (wow the word has one 'l') to SA.

The domestic news channels are covering the Indaba with reporters on the ground, including Jody Jacobs for eNCA.

SA Decides is back on ANN7's schedule

Now that all the major political parties have held their election manifestos, ANN7 will be kicking its political news coverage into overdrive (as if it has not been there already).

Today (May 2nd) political news show, SA Decides is back on the channel's schedule daily at both 10am and 5pm.

The political news show premiered back in the 2014 election cycle, and featured nine teams crisscrossing the country's provinces to get an on the ground feel of the South African electorate. One thing that wont be back when the show returns is the anchor of the first season, Nzinga Qunta, who has since left the channel.

This time around, the channel is deploying eleven teams of 'media professionals' (55 individuals in total) across the country to cover the local elections. Most of these individuals will be young and aspiring journalists looking for an opportunity to get their foot in the door.

“The teams will travel the length and breadth of the country to reflect on ordinary people’s challenges and enable community engagements in order to provide a platform for ordinary people to tell stories about their own developments, hopes and aspirations,” the Channel’s News Editor Abhinav Sahay said.

In addition, the channel promises interviews with political heavyweights daily and in depth analysis on the issues shaping this election.

eNCA looking outside of organisation for Andrew Barnes' replacement

The unexpected departure of Andrew Barnes from eNCA has left a void at the channel's Cape Town bureau, particularly at the channel's only news bulletin broadcast from Cape Town, News Day (By the way, this is the only bulletin on any 24 hour news channel in the country anchored from outside of Johannesburg).

It now seems that the channel doesn't think that anyone in the organisation is capable of filling Barnes' shoes, and has issued the below vacancy (which is posted here, courtesy of TVSA):
 eNCA is looking to hire a senior news anchor to present news bulletins from the channel's Cape Town office. The position is a one year contract post.

Reporting to the eNCA news editor, your dutires would include:

 - Anchoring daily news bulletins Monday - Friday,

- Field anchoring where necessary,

- Researching interviews as part of the editorial team,

- Contribute to story ideas and help with conceptualising content for the show,

- Check and rewrite links for the show where necessary,

- Arrange and set up interviews when required,

- Conduct live and pre-recorded interviews during and outside of the show,

- Voice-overs for packages when required,

 - Engage on social media, to promote the brand and the programme.

Requirements

- At least 10 years’ experience in journalism, with at least five of those years anchoring on TV,

 - Journalism qualification,

- Good general knowledge, thorough understanding of South African politics,

- A team player and an ability to work with others,

- Work to strict deadlines and display initiative,

- Willingness to work flexible hours - shifts, weekends and longer hours if necessary.

If you have these criteria and qualifications, you can send your Application form and a detailed CV to jobs@enca.com

Only shortlisted applicants who meet the criteria will be contacted. If you haven't received a response within 14 days after the closing of the advert, you will know that your application hasn't been successful.

Closing date: Monday, 2 May 2016.

Very few people in the country actually meet the above requirements, so I will be interesting to see who they get. Of the people that meet this requirement, how many are actually willing to move to Cape Town?

The obvious and major requirement not listed above is that the anchor has to be male. All of eNCA's flagship programming is dual anchored by a male-female pairing and the current anchor of News Day, Michelle Craig, is female.

RATINGS: Free to Air Highlights from March

Below are the news  and actuality programming highlights from the free to air channels (and a few from more popular DStv channels):
etv

• Benefiting from its lead in of the popular WWE Raw, eNews Direct Headlines on Sunday evenings continue to average over 2 million viewers in its two minute slot at 6pm. This on the heels of the channel's desire to move the under performing weekday edition out of prime time.
• In what was a very strong month for the independent broadcaster, no other news or actuality show made the channel's top 20 programming for the month.

MNet

• Carte Blanche continues to be the channel's strongest regularly schedule program, with its nearly 218 000 viewers beating out The Voice South Africa for the channel's top spot.

SABC1

• Both the Xhosa and Zulu news bulletins continue to do exceptionally well for the channel, averaging over 4 million viewers each. To put that into perspective, the only tv shows on free to air television other than on SABC1 that are beating these news bulletins are Muvhango (SABC2) and Scandal (etv).

SABC2

• Consumer rights show, Speak Out, was the number one actuality show on SABC 2, averaging over 2.7 million viewers for the month.
• The daily Afrikaans news bulletin averaged just over 1.6 million viewers.
• Ayanda-Allie Paine's Visionaries Lounge, which got off to a slow start, now averages over 1.5 million viewers.
• Daily live youth show, Hectic Nine-9, the most watched youth show in the country, averaged 1.37 million viewers for the month.
• The recently moved Sesotho and Setswana and Sepedi news bulletin now averages 1.3 million viewers in the historically weak 6pm slot on SABC2,

SABC3

• The daily English news bulletins continues to average just over 800 000 viewers.

Extra

• V Entertainment on Vuzu averaged just over 70 000 viewers for the month of March, the last month featuring Denise Zimba and Shelton Forbes before the introduction of the now negatively reviewed "#Vuzu5". It is important to remember that this vewership excludes viewers watching on the DStv Premium-only Vuzu Amp channel. 

ANN7 anchor, Lauren Jenae, jumps to... Rhythm City

When a television broadcast journalist decides to call it quits, they usually end up going to print media, radio or even academia. For ANN7 anchor, Lauren Jenae, the jump will be to a soap star, eTV's Rhythm City to be exact.

Jenae, who has anchored various odd shifts on ANN7 like weekends and fill in work, has always had acting at heart. Last year, she took off from her anchoring duties at the news channel to be a contestant on BET Africa's Top Actor SA.

Though news anchoring was not her preferred line of work, she was really not too bad as anchor, being able to hold it down be it  by simply reading the teleprompter or doing big interviews, most recently holding the controversial Pastor Mboro to task.

Rhythm City airs weekdays on eTV at 7pm.

 [Personally I thought she would deservedly have had a larger role on ANN7 in future]

etv wants to move news out of prime time: Was that the plan all along?

By now you have probably heard about etv applying to the broadcast regulator for permission to move its daily evening news bulletin out of the highly lucrative and competitive prime time slot. You have heard their reasons: It doesn't make money (or it is losing them money), it is an outdated model and they could be airing highly profitable programming in that slot. But was moving news out of prime time their plan all along?

First of all, let's make one thing clear: They are not cancelling the news bulletin, they just want to move it out of prime time, which is currently defined in South Africa as being 6pm-10pm (which is relatively long by international standards).

The whole rebranding exercise eNews Prime Time underwent to become eNews Direct now seems to make sense in a whole new way since news about the channel's ambitions became public. There is absolutely nothing 'Direct' about eNews Direct and it wanting to bring up to the minute news to South Africans. By the time the bulletin airs, the markets are closed, press conferences are already done, sporting events only take place later in the evening, the only thing trending on social media in reall time is V Entertainment, parliament is usually out of session, and so are major court cases that might warrant air time. So there really are no up to the minute updates to provide in a 'direct' way.

It seems more likely that the reason the name was changed was so that it could drop the 'Prime Time' part, so that a few months later when the program is epected to move again, viewers are already familiar with an 'eNews Direct' brand, and not a 'eNews Prime Time' brand even though it is not in prime time.

Another suspicious activity is that when eNews Direct launched in January this year, Duduzile Ramela oddly gave up her 4pm-6pm Afternoon News slot on eNCA to anchor the bulletin, even though she has previously been able to manage anchoring both slots before (4pm-6pm on eNCA, 6:30pm on etv). If etv wants to move the prime time bulletin, its most likely slot would clash with that 4pm-6pm block, probably at 5:30pm.

A similar argument can be made for Gareth Edwards who now hosts a social media segment on eNews Direct, which airs at the same time as News Night on eNCA, a bulletin he traditionally anchored on Fridays.

When tv channels launch new concept programming, like swapping eNews Prime Time for eNews Direct, they usually allow quite a few months for the new show to catch on before deciding whether it is a success or failure. The fact that the channel is saying that the bulletin is losing them money without giving it much chance to gel with audiences makes it seem as if eNews Direct was destined to fail.

President Zuma addresses the nation to apologise

Last night, s Friday night, President Zuma decided he wanted to address the nation on the Constitutional Court ruling that was announced this past week.

Many thought he would be announcing something larger than that (to be exact, his resignation), which caused the major broadcasters to scramble to provide adequate coverage for his potentially blockbuster address.

etv felt the need to push the channel's entire prime time schedule back by at least 30 minutes in order to cover the address, which means they really thought something major was going to happen as their two biggest tv shows (Rhythm City and Scandal) were pushed aside for the president. Interestingly, the channel decided to simulcast eNCA's coverage of the address instead of just extending Duduzile Ramela's eNews Direct bulletin, which was on air until 7pm and was created with the intention of covering major events as they happen.

The SABC kept disruptions on their free to air channels to a minimum. SABC3's schedule went on uninterrupted whilst the ongoing Afrikaans and Zulu news bulletins were going to cover the event during their standard 7pm broadcasts, which were extended to 7:32pm to cover the entire event.
History was also made as this was now the first major event covered by the SABC to not be anchored in the English language on the broadcaster's free to air platform. The only program on the SABC's schedule that was affected by the address was Noot vir Noot on SABC 2 which was completely preempted to broadcast the ANC's press conference.

Peter Ndoro and Vabakshnee Chetty anchored coverage on the SABC News Channel.

ANN7 seemed to have sent their staff home early, or given them the day off and the unexpected address really once again showed the channel's lack of talent. The recently appointed ANN7 Prime anchor, Sindy Mabe, was not in studio today which meant some inexperienced anchor had to do the job of covering a presidential address, which is not easy to do considering the amount of ad libbing required (and teleprompter reading, apparently). The channel's panel experts were not in studio, with analysis being provided purely by phone. In other words, ANN7 would do quite well as a radio station. They had the excellent Assignments Editor, Cecilia Russel, as the first analyst, followed by editor in chief, Moegsien Williams. They also had a political expert, all three by phone. Add to this the fact that the coverage was done from the couch. A presidential address, covered from the couch.

eNCA once again went all out with providing coverage of the address. They had Karyn Maughn, Xoli Mngambi, Angelo Fick and Justice Malala all in studio providing analysis. Later in the evening when Gwede Mantashe addressed the media, he was actually looking for Mngambi as he said Mngambi had camped out at the ANC's offices the prior evening believing the address would be held then.
Following Zuma's address, eNCA interviewed main opposition leader, Mmusi Maimane, by telephone to get his reaction to the president's remarks.

Andrew Barnes resigns from eNCA

eNCA this past week announced that senior anchor Andrew Barnes has resigned from the organisation.

This brings to the end an over 15 year journey with eNews for Barnes, where he spent most of the time anchoring News Day.

"After 23 years in broadcasting, I leave South Africa with my partner to start a new life in my favourite corner of the world, south-east Asia.  I'll be putting the years of experience I've gained in training and development to launch my own business in Cambodia.  While Brandon and I shall miss this country, we're excited that the time has come to spread our wings."

Andrew Barnes has anchored eNews' News Day since its inception when it was a thirty minute news bulletin at 1pm on etv, which replaced etv's prior 1pm news bulletin, a thirty minute international news roundup from Reuters (Remember those days?).

In 2008 Barnes'  News Day was expanded to three hours with the launch of the then eNews Channel and was paired up with Robyn Smith (three hours is a long time to be anchoring the news none stop), who ended her tenure at the group this past Monday.

Over the years (well at least since 2008), Andrew has had various co-anchors join him at News Day once Robyn Smith left that position. They were Sherezade Safla, Bhavna Singh and currently, Michelle Craig. Craig will continue to anchor the bulletin solo for the foreseeable future until a permanent co-anchor is announced, which will not be soon considering Cathy Mohlahlana has been waiting quite long already for a co-anchor to join her for Mid Morning News.

Barnes has had the opportunity to report from around the world during his time at eNews/eNCA, including reporting from Washington, D.C. for the historic 2008 election there and the royal wedding in London, among others.