What was this? No, really ... what was this?
e.tv dumped its eNews Prime Time news bulletin and replaced it on Monday evening with what can only be described as one of the most awful, technically terrible and most cringe-worthy pieces of television trashnews since the disastrous launch of ANN7 (DStv 405).
eNews Direct on e.tv is literally the worse piece of South African produced TV news I watched since the jaw-droppingly bad launch of ANN7.
Have the people at e.tv, eNews and eNCA ever heard of the word "rehearsal"? Even more importantly, have they no shame?
If this is what "TV news" looks like after a rehearsal or dry-runs, people really should get fired.
eNews Direct is inexcusably bad and very poorly executed and e.tv is doing a big disservice to viewers with this misdirected mess.
eNews Direct that started on Monday night was filled with wrong camera cuts, awful and erratic camerawork, a news reader who looked more interested in her tablet, numerous cringe-inducing mistakes, a dumbed down weather map, a lot of stuff that completely didn't work and was an utter disorganised mess.
eNews Direct, e.tv's extremely disappointing latest iteration of a news bulletin is an abominable mess - it's hard to believe that people who've been doing news for years are responsible for this abject failure which feels like a total disservice to viewers when it comes to news.
If you've ever seen a kitten that got into a basket of wool, you will have an idea of what e.tv's dismal eNews Direct is: a messy and disorganised heap of stuff that doesn't gel, doesn't make sense and that is worsened by numerous human errors and technical mistakes.
Watching the first episode of e.tv's eNews Direct it was as if the SABC suddenly grew a parallel news service besides SABC News and did it in red and blue - but just as bad.
eNews Direct is painful to watch - as if e.tv with it wants to punish free-to-air viewers for not having DStv and watching eNCA (DStv 403).
It's as if e.tv is now signalling that people who submit themselves to watching this "news lite" mess with ugly social media latch on's, actually deserve it because they are too stupid to expect or deserve more, or too cheap to watch TV news on a pay-TV channel.
Universities are now simply "unives" according to e.tv and eNews Direct's lower-third banner.
Add the (other unintentional?) "mistakes" of e.tv and eNews Direct showing you things like competitor ANN7's Tweet front and centre, or the SABC News channel on a background monitor, and you will struggle to believe that what you see is actually really being produced and broadcast by e.tv backed with the expertise of the eNCA brand.
The structure, the content, the delivery, the shaky camerawork, the awkward angles, the anchor, the presentation, the script, the "studio", the colours - basically everything about eNews Direct on e.tv is extremely off-putting and just very wrong.
eNews Direct on e.tv is an ugly, disjointed, technically flawed mess, rehashing hashtagged news for an imagined viewership that must be... what? Morons?
Awkward anchor Dudu Ramela behaves like your irritating dinner guest or family member who makes it blatantly clear that she is more interested in her handheld device than you. Did she read her news script beforehand or just showed up to focus or where she would be standing for each of the 1 500 newsroom segment changes?
More interested in counting her lines, Dudu Ramela will look up and talk to you, but she doesn't really want to talk to you because her tablet is more important. That's the eNews Direct vibe, because the news must now be trendy and "trending".
eNews Direct will now even do "Entertainment" - but sadly even that "news" was all old news inside the new bulletin that is supposedly updating you on what's "trending". The (hashtag) "GarethCliff" was all old news, instead of eNews Direct giving viewers new information and facts.
Why is the respected eNCA anchor and social media editor Gareth Edwards even in and part of this downmarket eNews Direct mess?
Why does neither the cameramen with their poor camerawork, editors or director(s) seem to know what's happening next and what the flow is?
Why does this confusing half hour jump from this to that to sport to business to whatever else? Why is the quality of the camerawork and literally every single other element that makes up this eNews Direct bulletin so terribly weak and bad?
Where is the actual news content and the substance? eNews Direct comes across as a vacuum-like bubble of frenetic nothingness - giving viewers more of nothing and less of everything that the eNews Prime Time bulletin offered before.
What a waste to watch.
