Africa News Network or ANN7 (DStv 405) is urgently looking for TV news reporters across the country days before the launch of its new 24-hour TV news service as South Africa's newest, and third, TV news channel.
ANN7 which which plans to launch next Wednesday 21 August on MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV platform as South Africa's newest, and third, TV news channel, is urgently looking for more TV news reporters.
ANN7 is advertising and splashing the cash in a bid to attract and grab entertainment and feature reporters, news reporters, as well as business reporters for the new news channel.
After a major ANN7 hiring spree kicked off in June when the nascent news channel embarked on a massive talent procurement drive for its news studio facility in Midrand, ANN7 is now again advertising and searching for more South African TV news reporters - mere days before the news channel is set to start broadcasting news around the clock.
ANN7 already grabbed Chantal Rutter Dros who've decided to drop M-Net's highly-acclaimed Carte Blanche investigative magazine show where she's been a presenter the past few years.
Chantal Rutter Dros will become the solo news anchor of ANN7 Headlines and ANN7 Prime, two daily primetime news shows once ANN7 launches.
ANN7 also snagged another former M-Netter Geri Rantseli-Elsdon who will be the presenter of ANN7's weekday morning show Vuka Africa.
Days before ANN7 is set to go live, the 24-hour TV news channel which has president Jacob Zuma's son Duduzane Zuma as one of the investors and shareholders, is advertising for more TV news reporters.
The channel - nicknamed the "Gupta news channel" due to the Gupta family's interest in Infinity Media, the conglomerate creating ANN7 - is looking for TV news reporters across South Africa with at least two years experience in the TV industry and who has some expertise in news-gathering.
ANN7's major on-screen news talent recruitment comes as the existing independent TV news channel eNCA (DStv 403) made unannounced talent timeslot changes moving Joanne Joseph to the mornings opposite Gareth Edwards and placing Nikiwe Bikitsha in the afternoons.
The eNCA on-air change comes as its news reader Ayanda Allie-Paine dropped the eNCA to join the SABC's new SABC News TV channel from September.
SABC News started at the beginning of August on DStv channel 404 as the South African public broadcaster's second attempt at a 24-hour TV news channel after its first try, SABC News International, folded in April 2010.
MultiChoice is giving the SABC more than half a billion rand over the next few years to broadcast SABC News. SABC News which is not currently available to all viewers obliged to pay an annual SABC TV licence, will eventually be made available freely once the long-delayed switch to digital terrestrial television (DTT) takes place in South Africa.
As the TV news wars in South Africa heat up with the available 24-hour South African TV news channels suddenly mushrooming in one month from one to three, all positioned next to each other on the DStv channel line-up, ANN7 is now urgently looking for TV news reporters, business reporters, features reporters and entertainment news reporters. "Knowledge of camera and video editing will be an added advantage," says ANN7.
South African newsers who want to apply can send their CV's to Margriet at hr01@ann7.co.za
