October start date of SABC's proposed new 24 hour news channel will not be met; starting date 'extremely unlikely'. - sources.

The October start date given to South Africa's parliament of the SABC's new 24 hour news channel to replace SABC News International will not be met according to various SABC News insiders who call the proposed launch date of the new digital TV channel in 12 weeks' time ''extremely unlikely'', ''highly doubtful'', ''a whistful dream'' and ''not possible''.

The SABC and SABC News division wanted to start the new 24 hour news channel in April this year which proved impossible and then pushed it to October - a date that will again proof to be logistically insurmountable for the SABC, according to sources.

In the last appearance before parliament's portfolio committee on communications, the SABC board and the now-ousted acting group CEO Robin Nicholson told the committee that it wants the new SABC News channel to start in October. It also called the new news channel a key driver of the SABC's turnaround strategy. The new news channel will cost the SABC R80 million per year to operate.

The new channel is envisioned to be a domestic news channel covering South African news and which will become a free-to-air digital channel as part of the SABC's proposed digital terrestrial television (DTT) bouquet offering.

Various SABC News insiders that TV with Thinus spoke to this past week say the October deadline which is 12 weeks away isn't possible and the timeline ''wholly inadequate'' given operational, technical, staffing and logistical planning challenges. ''Phil Molefe [head of news and current affairs at the SABC] is already in a new office as acting group CEO. His focus is now the whole SABC and not just the news division,'' said an insider.

Another source said that staffing for the new channel would be problematic. ''There's not enough staff for the various divisions as things are already, SABC News, SABC Sport, SABC radio – and now the corporation is downsizing and want to get rid of 800 people. A new especially news channel requires more people, not less. And you can't on the one hand do away with people which is now going to happen and then suddenly want to appoint much-needed camera people and technical staff on the other hand to run this channel. Already everybody is working either during the week or weekends. Will SABC News staff do double duty? How will it work? There's not enough time in the day. No discussions about work rosters for two months from now has taken place''.

''I don't know where the studio would be,'' says another calling the October launch ''highly doubtful''. ''All the available studios are used throughout the day. The channel would need full-time studio resources which doesn't exist. Where will journalists sit? And there's a big archive problem. It's very difficult to find what you're looking for. You'd also have to film a lot more to run TV news for 24 hours than for making one daily bulletin.'' Another insider says ''staff went on training courses for a new video editing programme but the new software isn't here and isn't used, so people are going to forget the training and will probably have to redo it when or of it the editing programme arrive. And equipment is old. Parts of the sound system especially to equalize sound levels are so old and damaged it's beyond what would be required to run 24 hours.''

''Starting in October with a new 24 hour news channel is extremely unlikely,'' says another. ''Permanent staff can't freelance and they do everywhere by the way; the SABC can bring freelancers in but that wouldn't help. And a lot more cameramen would be required. The scope of this is too big to have a full channel running in two month's time. It's a whistful dream.''

The SABC didn't respond to an enquiry about whether the broadcaster's proposed new news channel is on track to launch by October.