BREAKING. SABC News 24-hour channel must 'seize the opportunity to cover South Africa beyond crime and corruption,' says president Jacob Zuma.

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The SABC's new 24-hour TV news channel, SABC News, launching at 18:00 on MultiChoice's DStv platform on channel 404 "is being established at the right time", says president Jacob Zuma who is speaking at the channel's launch event being held at the SABC's headquarters at Auckland Park, saying "we hope this channel will seize the opportunity to cover South Africa beyond crime and corruption".

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"This channel will only be available on the DStv platform initially," said Jacob Zuma who struggled to read his speech at the launch of the SABC's SABC News channel.

SABC News replaces the SABC's first attempt at a 24-hour TV news channel, SABC News International, which was canned.

Speaking at the launch, president Jacob Zuma said "this will ensure a test phase that will pair the SABC for its roll out nationally of digital television. It is important that this 24 hour seven days a week channel provides success to news and information that is within easy reach of most citizens."

"I hope it will indeed be news," said Jacob Zuma. "Real news and education material and proper entertainment. you know what I mean. Ha Ha. I'm not going to say anything."

The SABC News channel will start with a two hour news show.

President Jacob Zuma will be interviewed from the news studios, following his speech this afternoon. The channel will also be covering the Zimbabwe elections.

The SABC 24-hour news channel will cross over to various South African provinces this evening and also interview Lulama Mokhobo, the SABC CEO, as well as an interview with Pravin Gordhan, the minister of finance.

Other inserts include a look at the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), as well as an interview with Lesotho's prime minister Thomas Thabane, and a planned live crossing to Kenya for East African news.

As DStv lose the ill-conceived 24-hour TV news channel from the SABC in favour of a new New Age one, the SABC's attempt remains but a dream.

It simply took too long, was inappropriately funded as a public broadcaster by a commercial private company, fraught with too many hurdles and mistakes, way too many fake starts, over-promises, non-delivery, a head of news supposed to oversee everything who was suspended for the larger part of 2012 and even zero business plan approval from the Treasury and government ...

... which is why channel 404 on MultiChoice's DStv pay-TV platform which would have been the SABC's new 24-hour TV news channel, will now become a new 24-hour TV news channel from Infinity Media and The New Age newspaper.


ALSO READ: ANN7 - Africa News Network 7 - is the new 24-hour South African TV news channel which will start towards the middle of 2013 on DStv.


It was the right thing for MultiChoice and the SABC to sever paths in as far as the stillborn SABC's new 24-hour TV news channel is concerned and which was supposed to replace the ill-fated SABC News International. MultiChoice, a private, commercial company was ready to pump millions of rands into the news channel - a news channel from the public broadcaster. Talk about a conflict of interest.

That is and would have been inappropriate. As a public broadcaster - although widely considered a government mouthpiece - the SABC should remain neutral and free from corporate, commercial influences, such as a private company investing in it in return for a service. And that is what would have happened had the SABC news channel materialised on DStv.

Now the struggling broadcaster will (have to) wait for the excrusiatingly never-arriving vista of digital terrestrial television (DTT) on which to launch its SABC 24-hour news channel without DStv money and assistance.

And who knows, the channel might still eventually end up again on DStv and TopTV who might include it as a public service channel under South Africa's must-carry regulations if that does come to pass in the new digital broadcasting regulatory environment.

MultiChoice will not be funding the new 24-hour news channel from Infinity Media, although there wouldn't be a problem with that if there were an investment from MultiChoice into this new news channel.

The new news channel which Infinity Media plans to launch on DStv later this year would not, and never will be, a public broadcaster like what the SABC is.

The SABC's ineptitude, bad planning, lack of funding and general procrastination make the hurdles to launch and turn its proposed 24-hour TV news channel into a success now even more difficult.

With the eNCA already in existence and the next new local South African news channel now on the horizon with a planned launch for later this year, the SABC's new news channel - if it ever starts - would become the third news channel. It will no longer be the second and face an even bigger struggle for viewers, advertisers, funding, brand breakthrough in a clutter market and access to news and scoops.

Can South Africa really cope with three local 24-hour news channels? Is there really enough voices, enough different opinions - enough news! - to create and maintain three distinct rolling news channels in this country?

The eNCA has been very successful so far. Meanwhile the new start-up channel from Infinity Media and The New Age attempting to follow in the eNCA's footsteps will need deep pockets and will require an investment of millions. The SABC, now suddenly relegated to third in the line behind these two, just suddenly got the odds stacked even further against it.

As DStv bid adieu to the SABC's wanna-make-it-work 24-hour TV news channel, and as a brand-new contender enter the video sphere ring from its studios under construction in Midrand, the SABC's plans for a new "SABC News International" - despite lofty test runs out of Auckland Park - remains an ever-elusive pipedream.