Gerry Rantseli-Elsdon had quietly quit ANN7 (DStv 405) and the Infinity Media produced 24-hour TV news channel's morning show Vuka Africa she hosted, barely months after ANN7 launched her as the new face of its morning television slot.
After hiring Gerry Rantseli-Elsdon and hyping her as one of its high profile gets, with Gerry Rantseli-Elsdon trumpeting her return to South African television, and ANN7 positioning Vuka Africa as its big new morning show, Gerry Rantseli-Elsdon suddenly found herself right in the centre and the face of the inept, cringe-worthy and highly embarrassing ANN7 launch event in August 2013, fronting the shockingly amateur spectacle.
Now Gerry Rantseli-Elsdon, a former M-Net continuity presenter, quietly slipped away under the radar following her high-profile hire, with no replacement hire by ANN7 for the timeslot. Gerry Rantseli-Elsdon already dumped ANN7 in February this year, after only six months.
Vuka Africa, like other ANN7 shows and timeslots, was beset with problems and littered with live mistakes on television in the timeslot over which Gerry Rantseli-Elsdon presided.
With Gerry Rantseli-Elsdon gone, ANN7 dumped the entire morning breakfast show show idea centred around her seated on a red couch as well.
ANN7 kept the name of Vuka Africa, but changing the logo and has dumped the softer breakfast show format, reverting it to a normal newscast with an anchor reading the news from behind the news desk and some short newsmaker interviews.
Gerry Rantseli-Elsdon left ANN7 "to do other things", says ANN7 spokesperson Gary Naidoo.
"Gerry had a contract with ANN7 which ran until February 21. Gerry indicated to the management team that she will not be renewing the contract for the morning show. Gerry has confirmed that she is open to discussing a continued relationship with the channel".
ANN7's Vuka Africa timeslot continues to serve up highly embarrassing and cringe-worthy mistakes.
Earlier this week for instance telenality Tomy Titus was interviewed. She will soon be going to the United States of America on a study scholarship.
During the ANN7 interview in the Vuka Africa timeslot, the TV news channel embarrassingly (since a USA ambassador was present in studio which made it worse) kept displaying and rolling unrelated footage of NSA surveillance and B-roll from archive stories from "America is spying on the world" stories.
While Romy Titus talked about how wonderful it's going to be to go to America, ANN7 kept showing incongruous American cyber spying images on the background TV monitors and screens behind the newsdesk, as well as full screen.
Nobody stopped it or changed it - obviously pulling up the first "lets show America and Washington" footage for background they could find, without checking or noticing that it is inappropriate for a "South African going to Washington on scholarship" story.
