BREAKING. eMedia Investments to launch a new 24-hour TV news channel, OpenNews, at the end of 2018 on its own OpenView; will do a 2-hour Afrikaans block on eExtra including a new Afrikaans TV news bulletin.

eMedia Investments will launch a new 24-hour TV news channel, similar to its existing eNCA (DStv 403) carried on MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV platform, at the end of this year that will be called OpenNews and that will be carried on its free-to-air satellite pay-TV platform OpenView run by Platco Digital.

In addition to the new TV news channel, a 2-hour Afrikaans programming block will be added to the eExtra channel, including a new Afrikaans TV news bulletin to rival the Afrikaans bulletin from the SABC on SABC2 as well as eNuus that e.tv produces for kykNET.

OpenNews will include some eNCA content like the new magazine show, The Spotlight with Tanya Nefdt, as well as 2 new current affairs shows, The Tim Modise Show and The Fix with Karima Brown, but will be catering to a different market segment and viewing audience.

"OpenNews will be broadcast out of the Cape Town studios, offering viewers an integrated news channel combining short format news, onscreen information and links with selected social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram, and a proprietary app," says André van der Veen, eMedia Investments CEO.

"eMedia Investments has the talent, knowledge and experience to launch South Africa's first satellite free-to-air television news channel. OpenNews will be an independent news service, but hosts will be encouraged to 'to take a view' on regional, international, sports, entertainment and financial news," says André van der Veen.

OpenNews will start as a standard definition (SD) channel but may switch to high definition (HD) later when it launches during the fourth quarter of 2018.

OpenNews will have its own management team and brand identity and will look distinctively different to eNCA that OpenNews will be competing with.

eMedia Investments willl also start a 2-hour block of Afrikaans programming on OpenView's eExtra (OVHD 105 / DStv 195) channel. This Afrikaans broadcasting block will include general entertainment, current affairs programming as well as an Afrikaans TV news bulletin that will be different from the eNuus provided to M-Net's kykNET (DStv 144) and kykNET & Kie (DStv 145) on DStv.

eMedia Investments says the programme mix is in the final stages of being finalised and the line-up will be announced in the next few weeks.

eMedia didn't give an explanation for starting a new TV news channel but one factor at play in the creation of OpenNews as well as the new Afrikaans TV news bulletin is that eMedia Investments wants to establish its own supply chain owned-and-operated TV news channel and content in case contracts like supplying eNCA or customised content like eNuus to MultiChoice and kykNET are cancelled.

Contract negotiations between eMedia Investments and MultiChoice and M-Net's kykNET have steadily become more contentious over recent years.

If a future carriage agreement renewal for eNCA or content like eNuus can't be reached - something that would mean the sudden disappearance of a eNCA or eNuus leaving eMedia Investments with no market presence in these content spaces - eMedia Investments will have fallback brand positions like OpenNews where it owns both the channel, the content as well as the distribution platform.

e.tv's worse MultiChoice carriage deal for eNCA and the 5 other OpenView HD channels on DStv sees eMedia record an interim loss of R729 000.

e.tv's worse carriage deal for eNCA and the other e.tv packaged channels on MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV platform - lessened by almost half - pushed eMedia Investments into a loss of R729 000 for the half year to end-September.

eMedia Investments, the TV business division of Hosken Consolidated Investments, reported in its interim results for the 6 months to the end of September that its interim revenue declined by 5% to R1.2 billion.

What contributed to the decline in revenue is increased programming spend, as well as the drop by almost half in the carriage deal income that eMedia Investments now gets from MultiChoice after signing a new carriage deal for its channels like eNCA and others to be carried on DStv.

Earlier this year eMedia Investments and MultiChoice signed a contract extension for eNCA but is now also including 5 other e.tv packaged channels from its Platco Digital run OpenView HD (OVHD) free-to-air satellite platform.

Until mid-2017 these additional 5 channels were only available on OpenView HD but has now been included in the packaged deal of the eNCA carriage contract.

eMedia Investments is however getting less money than before despite providing more channels to MultiChoice.

The carriage fee eNCA gets from MultiChoice was almost halved to R140.8 million from R266.6 million

"The decrease is attributable to the renegotiated DStv contract, which showed a significant decline in the licence fee revenue the group receives from MultiChoice for the supply of eNCA and five other channels," says André van der Veen, eMedia Investments CEO in the results statement.

eMedia Investments however did manage to make up some of this loss by growing adverting revenue by 16% from R45 million to R52 million.

Taking over the TV licensing rights from Sony Pictures of the weekday soap Days of Our Lives this year from the SABC's SABC3 that is now broadcast on e.tv also came with a hefty sticker price and saw eMedia Investments' content costs increase by 34% to R929 million.

Programming and other costs at e.tv increased by 7% to R359 million.

e.tv however did manage to grow its advertising revenue by 4% to R689 million.

e.tv was able to keep its TV audience market share basically stable, "but has seen a decline in the key revenue drivers of LSM5 to LSM7".