BREAKING. SABC CEO at a loss to explain plummeting SABC news viewership, admits viewers are turning to e.tv's eNews Prime Time.

You're reading it here first.

Solly Mokoetle, the group CEO of the SABC wasn't able to give a clear reason to parliament regarding the plunging viewership of the SABC's flagship daily TV news bulletin on SABC3 at 19:00. And that downward viewership spiral for the daily News @ 7 on SABC3 is before the sudden removal from the bulletin of news anchor Mahendra Raghunath who got replaced with a merry go round bunch of mostly inept and largely unknown nightly news anchors.

Solly Mokoetle admitted that viewers are leaving the SABC's 19:00 flagship bulletin in droves and turning to e.tv's eNews Prime Time bulletin at 19:00.

''What may be happening is that viewers view other bulletins at 19:00 and then come to their trusted broadcaster at 19:30 to give them the other version of the news,'' Solly Mokoetle said, who admitted that SABC3 has lost ''significant market share'' in the 19:00 TV news race.

''The news gathering process of the SABC is driven by the English language so we would have expected that the bulletin that is scheduled at an appropriate time and in the English language would have driven the audiences. We can not understand how the 19:30 bulletin has become the biggest bulletin,'' Solly Mokoetle said.