The new eNCA website at www.enca.com which the South African 24-hour TV news channel launched last week on Tuesday is a news site which the news channel created for people to watch as much as they will visit it to read the news.
"One thing that was really concerning to us, was that we knew that if we're going to play in the online space, we would need better broadband in South Africa because our news site would essentially be one that you would watch as much as you will read - video being our key thing," said Patrick Conroy on the eNCA in an interview about the new website.
"We were very concerned that if we were to launch something when there wasn't sufficient broadband, that it would just be an exercise in frustration for the user. So we held back until the environment changed. And I think we've now reached that point."
"We don't want the website to be a separate entity. It's part of who we are. It's part of what we do. If you go through the list of staff on the online team, it's actually 50% TV people. The integration is very right between making sure that the TV operations and the online operations work together," said Patrick Conroy.
"It should be a seamless thing. If you've missed something on air, it will be on the website. If you're not watching us on screen, or you can second-screen, catch us on your mobile phone or on your computer at work," said Patrick Conroy.
Tim Spira, the general manager for the eNews online division, appeared on Maggs on Media on Sunday, the eNCA's weekly media current affairs show with Jeremy Maggs, to talk about the new eNCA news website.
"We always knew it was going to be a video-rich experience and the broadband penetration just really hadn't been there until now and that's now beginning to change," said Tim Spira.
He said the website faces unique challenges within South African, with the new eNCA news website being launched by a news broadcaster as opposed to a newspaper.
"We had to figure out a whole lot of things, like how do you get the video onto the computer screen, or onto a mobile screen. How do you make sure that it's optimised for an individual, their device, their bandwidth. And then also how do we serve up our content."
Charlotte Kilbane, the online editor of the eNews online division said that the future is the internet and the web "and yes the future is integrated and we're hoping that we can be the future of that in South Africa".
In terms of the layout and design and look of the new eNCA news site, Charlotte Kilbane said that the developing team took "some of their cues from television. I'm been a television person for several years now, and a lot of the people within the team come from the television part of this business as well."
"So we've tried to make it vibrant, very visual and a bit of movement as well. A lot of sites you see is like a newspaper put on screen, and we're the opposite of that," she said.
