by Thinus Ferreira
After 16 years the veteran South African TV reporter Tanya Nefdt has left eNCA (DStv 403) and has joined the Eclipse Communications public relations and communications agency.
Tanya Nefdt is part of an ongoing string of exits at eMedia's TV news channel.
eNCA is seeing an unrelenting loss of highly-experienced talent working on-screen and behind-the-scenes, with eMedia that gutted the Cape Town operations of its etv News division and with Jody Jacobs who just left as eNCA broadcast manager, eNCA anchor Shahan Ramkissoon who left at the end of May, and Lukhanyo Calata who just joined Newzroom Afrika (DStv 405) as its political editor.
These reporters are just some of the high-profile names who are gone from eNCA and etv News within the past few months after years of working there, with many more rank-and-file staffers as well as managers who have either been retrenched or decided to leave just the past few years, from what they have described as a toxic and mismanagement work environment.
The bubbly and empathetic Tanya Nefdt, who started out as a weather presenter and switched to lifestyle and entertainment reporting as well as doing profile stories, is known for her stellar work over decades putting a human face on people involved with interesting things and achievements, interviewing celebrities within the fame-sphere and entertainment biz, as well as the down-trodden experiencing difficult circumstances and setbacks.
Besides her reporting work seen on eNCA and etv News, Tanya Nefdt also appeared on, and did voice-overs for eNuus, eNCA's nightly Afrikaans TV news bulletin produced for M-Net's kykNET (DStv 144) and kykNET & Kie (DStv 145) pay-TV channel's on MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV service.
Tanya Nefdt also produced and presented The Spotlight on eNCA in 2018 as the channel's attempt of establishing a weekly lifestyle and entertainment news magazine show.
Tanya Nefdt has now joining the PR firm Eclipse Communications as head of online news, with Eclipse which is the public relations agency for Netflix in South Africa, as well as NBCUniversal's pay-TV channels seen on DStv like E!, Studio Universal, Universal TV and others.
Eclipse Communications is the same company that Shahan Ramkissoon joined following his eNCA exit.
In a statement, Tanya Nefdt says "I'm super excited to align myself with such a winning company and with so many leading brands".
"I will always be grateful to Debora Patta who believed in me and got me into broadcast news. I was a weather anchor at the time, a rough diamond with no experience and Debora polished me up and taught me how to be bold and not allow anyone to drag me down."
Jacki McEwen-Powell, Eclipse Communications founding partner, says Tanya Nefdt's "deep understanding of the news and how news is consumed will add immense value to our market offering. We are very excited that she chose to join us and add her immense talent and personality to an already impressive group of people within our business".
