eNCA (DStv 403) clearly apparently doesn't care if people know, or even if viewers tune in or watch, the joint eNCA and Daily Maverick The Great Debate - the e.tv and eNCA publicity department did nothing to promote The Great Debate or tell TV critics about it.
Sadly DStv viewers can't even record The Great Debate moderated by eNCA anchor Jeremy Maggs at Wits university - the electronic programme guide (EPG) on MultiChoice's DStv shows half hour segments of NewsNight at 20:00 and 20:30 - instead of the hour long The Great Debate that eNCA is in fact broadcasting.
It defies belief that eNCA, as a South African TV news channel, would invest anchors, energy, resources and time to produce content like a stage debate, and then completely fail to not even muster the bare minimum requirement of a basic publicity programming note to TV critics and people covering television, to say that a broadcast like this will be on.
If eNCA and e.tv can't even tell the press who will in turn tell readers about shows and special programming about something like The Great Debate, one has to wonder why they're even doing it in the first place and why they bother with something which they themselves don't value or see as important enough to even promote or inform people about.
It is disingenuous of eNCA to have a special election debate like The Great Debate with Daily Maverick and then say it has to do something like as a substitute because all the political parties are not willing to come to the table - meanwhile eNCA itself doesn't come to the party to even tell viewers that it will be on and when to watch.
eNCA and Daily Maverick's The Great Debate can just as well be - as far as viewers are concerned - The Non-Existent Debate.
eNCA is a news channel - supposed to really excel and specialise in the disemanation of information. Sadly when it comes to the channel's own news regarding its programming, it doesn't.
Embarrassing.
