"The eNews Channel is changing to eNCA as the channel is branching out to launch on the Sky pay-TV platform in the United Kingdom and introducing our online offering very soon. So it's an exciting time for us," said Patrick Conroy, the group head of news at the eNCA at the press conference and official unveiling of the new eNCA on Friday afternoon at the Radisson Blu Gautrain hotel in Sandton.
The eNews Channel on MultiChoice's DStv remains exactly the same but is rebranding in terms of its on-air look and logo to make it more distinct as South Africa's only 24-hour and independent TV news channel goes intercontinental.
"We are truly excited at the prospects which this change brings," said Patrick Conroy. "We're highly motivated, but we're also quite daunted. It's a huge responsibility. It's a daunting but exciting challenge for us.""
"Now that we're on that platform we can't let the platform down. We've got to make sure that we look as professional as any news network in the world and that we don't embarrass ourselves or you [South Africa] when we are on that stage."
"The reason for our new rebrand and our new look, which - I tried my best to keep secret, and it was outed on Twitter, and where is Thinus Ferreira? Where are you? Thinus had the story long before anyone else. My people talk to Thinus more than they talk to me. So if you follow him you would have seen him put it all together," said Patrick Conroy.
"The reason for our rebrand is that as the eNews Channel its very difficult for the brand to travel internationally. We're very well known in South Africa, but we're an unknown entity in North America and Europe," said Patrick Conroy.
"We also needed something which could be linked to our URL online. The 'e' of eNews Channel clashes with E! Entertainment and anything starting with enews."
"If you do a Google search you find that a lot of the searches which come to the top would be things like the mayor of Wichita has an enewsletter, and we don't want to be confused with them. So it was a balancing act of trying to get the right name, but one which didn't fundamentally depart from what we had, but still retain a lot of the brand equity from our company e.tv. It's a strong, very powerful brand in this market, and we wanted to retain that as much as possible," said Patrick Conroy.
He went on to play the new graphics, promos, stings and show the new moving channel idents for the shows on the eNCA.
"We want to be instantaneously recognised as an African news broadcaster. If in the future we expand to North America, Europe, Australasia, we want everyone to be able to instantly recognise where it is that we're from. We hope very much that through words of mouth and marketing that South Africans in the United Kingdom will be tuning into us on Sky on channel 518."
"We also however hope to attract a fair number of viewers who are global citizens, people interested in South Africa and Africa. We see anyone as a global citizen from an entrepreneur, businessman, tourist, diplomats, politicians, think tank. We want the kind of content and nuance that a local broadcaster such as the eNCA can give you which a foreign broadcaster can't," said Patrick Conroy.
"In this opportunity being available on Sky; herein lies the chance to give a view from an African perspective. Central to this is our Africa division led by Chris Maroleng."
