Tuesday, January 18, 2011

BREAKING. CNBC Africa looking at retrenching staff; says downsizing won't affect the hours of live programming.


CNBC Africa (DStv 410) will possibly be retrenching staff at its Johannesburg office but the local business channel tells me it will not impact its schedule, amount of live, original content or operations.

Gary Alfonso, managing director of Africa Business News says in response to a media enquiry that CNBC Africa plans to ''restructure its staffing levels and to streamline its business''. ''As in any start-up, our business has grown significantly over the last 4 years. Operational inefficiencies resulting from an excess in staffing have arisen in a number of areas,'' he says and adds that ''the restructuring which takes place, if any, will impact on only a few people in our Johannesburg office.''

''Our operations and the programming in Johannesburg remain unaffected and we will continue to broadcast 8 hours of live content from our Johannesburg studio,'' he says. The possible dowsizing of CNBC Africa's staff in South Africa comes after a turbulent year for the business channel that was revealed to have received millions of rands from the Gauteng Film Commission, a contract that has since been terminated and the income of which was a big part of the channel's annual revenue stream. CNBC Africa has told me that it plans to open a number of new bureaus across Southern Africa this year, hopefully in Mosambique, Zambia as possibly in Zimbabwe.

ALSO READ: CNBC Africa plans to open bureaus in 2011 in Mosambique, Zambia and possibly Zimbabwe.