REVIEW. During and after South Africa's Thursday hostage drama Newzroom Afrika won the night, followed by SABC News 2nd and eNCA arriving 3rd in the coverage play-by-play.

by Thinus Ferreira

On Thursday night at around 23:30 while Newzroom Afrika's (DStv 405) political editor Sbu Ngalwa had literally found and pulled a reluctant South African police national spokesperson Vish Naidoo into the camera glare for a live interview in the aftermath of a ministerial hostage drama, the SABC News (DStv 404) cameraman showed viewers how its reporter arrived after several minutes and ran to also push a mic into Vish's face.

It took even longer for the eNCA (DStv 403) cameraman to arrive to show that channel's viewers how the eNCA reporter scrambled down a corridor to, quite belatedly, also thrust a mic into Sbu Ngalwa's basically done interview.

Sbu Ngalwa's brilliant work, and cornering Vish Naidoo with a doorstop interview, was indicative of how the totality of Thursday night went on South African TV news in the play-by-play of covering the developing news story for television viewers.

Newzroom Afrika fully won the night after it quickly switched to rolling and constant coverage, including cellphone footage (that neither SABC News nor eNCA had) of the night's ministerial hostage drama.

Newzroom Afrika constantly kept churning out updates and interviews, including a right-panel update screen. 

It put SABC News and eNCA to shame that both stuck with pre-recorded stories and election coverage for quite a while before trying to catch up and match Newzroom Afrika's "CNN-style" breaking, rolling coverage.

On Thursday night it looked like SABC News and eNCA were caught flat-footed, initially with more mooted coverage than Newzroom Afrika's borderline lurid, grainy cellphone video of the hostage drama that unfolded inside the St George's Hotel complex where South Africa's minister of defence Thandi Modise and other government officials were held hostage and had to be rescued by the South African Police Service Special Task Force.

Social media provides further proof of the pecking order of Thursday night's TV news channels' news coverage race.

eNCA on Twitter had absolutely nothing on its feed with no news updates after 22:00 where it apparently closed up shop and ended the night with a type of sponsored post about advertiser-funded content available on the channel.

SABC News put in a valiant effort with a few news updates but it's Newzroom Afrika that absolute excelled. 

Newzroom Afrika churned out both text and video reports about the unfolding developments late into the night and already started notifying potential viewers throughout the night about who it was prepping and lining up for interviews on Friday morning.

Newzroom Afrika felt present and out front as a media outlet covering the event on various platforms while SABC News and eNCA looked as if it they were short on resources and scrambling to catch up.

While Newzroom Afrika was covering the breaking news with real rolling coverage, SABC News initially did more short reaction interviews and commentary from its Auckland Park studio before a reporter eventually arriving on the scene.

eNCA would break in with the story but would weirdly return to packaged election news and other stories before it also switched full-time to rolling coverage from outside the St George's Hotel.

Noteworthy is that Thursday night's coverage of the ministerial hostage drama was led by men: Three male anchors with Thabo Mdluli (Newzroom Africa), Peter Ndoro (SABC News) and Shahan Ramkissoon (eNCA) behind the studio desks, and three male field reporters, Sbu Ngalwa (Newzroom Afrika), Samkele Maseko (SABC News) and Pule Letshwiti-Jones (eNCA) at the scene of the hostage drama.

Thabo Mdluli, Peter Ndoro and Shahan Ramkissoon were all great at "anchoring" with skilled gravitas and holding all of the various strands of news information together once all three TV news channels were fully covering the unfolding story.

Shahan Ramkissoon showed wonderful presence of mind by holding up a cellphone to his lapel mic to get the audio to viewers.

 

Sbu Ngalwa was first inside the St George's Hotel complex doing walk-and-talk, on-the-ground reporting. SABC News and eNCA, together with Newzroom Afrika, eventually all showed roving reporters and cameramen roaming the hotel corridors.

Also noteworthy was how all three TV news channels were able to immediately extend their live coverage for the night on Thursday night for breaking South African news instead of switching to repeats at their pre-determined hours.

It's clear that some learning has taken place and contingency plans put in place at all three TV news channel newsrooms having been showed up and found wanting in the past with non-coverage and no live coverage of South African news of national importance happening late night.

Katy Katopodis, Newzroom Afrika news director, kept viewers informed and actually told the audience on social media that the channel would remain live on the story, saying "We're extending our live broadcast to bring you rolling coverage of the breaking news from the St George's Hotel. Our politics editor, Sbu Ngalwa is coming to you live from the scene".

Watching and tracking all three TV news channels simultaneously on Thursday night for hours, Newzroom Afrika clearly won the night by a wide margin and looked the most like breaking news and rolling news coverage of the ministerial hostage drama. 

SABC News and eNCA were never able to fully match what Newzroom Afrika showed or did first - and better - on Thursday night.

While Newzroom Afrika showed cellphone footage of inside the room and with Sbu Ngalwa shown already walking around inside the hotel grounds and complex, at the same time SABC News would do a phone interview with static images while eNCA showed its reporter standing outside the front entrance.

In the TV news stakes, on Thursday night Newzroom Afrika was the one that constantly just looked the best.

TV REVIEW. In their Zuma Arrest Watch coverage SABC News won the night as eNCA devolved into opinion-tainment and Newzroom Afrika faded; eNCA reporter Siphamandla Goge the most valuable player.

by Thinus Ferreira

In Wednesday night's three-horse race of South African TV news channels and their respective rolling coverage of the impending arrest of Jacob Zuma, SABC News (DStv 404) ended as the overall winner, followed by an opinion-slanted eNCA (DStv 403) that also did bad "reporting" based on unconfirmed sources, while Newzroom Afrika (DStv 405) seemed to run out of stream after a few hours.

eNCA reporter Siphamandla Goge was Wednesday night's most valuable player during Zuma Arrest Watch as the country tuned in to watch the impending arrest and jailing of former president Jacob Zuma.

At 21:00 on Wednesday night as the various South African TV news channels had reporters stationed outside Nkandla in KwaZulu-Natal and at Westville prison, Newzroom Afrika was actually in the lead with the best coverage and live crossings, followed by SABC News and with eNCA in third place that was running a TV talk show. 

Over the course of the following three hours, both SABC News (DStv 404) and eNCA each improved their coverage.

SABC News improved from second position to first, eNCA (DStv 403) improved from third position to second, and Newzroom Africa (DStv 405) that seemed to get a bit lost in terms of editorial direction, fell from first to third place in its coverage.

The first big question on Wednesday night was which of the three TV news channels might stay with original and live rolling coverage and whether eNCA, SABC News and Newzroom Afrika might switch to repeats and rebroadcasts from around 22:00 and 23:00 on Wednesday night.

Luckily, all have seemingly learnt the lesson from previous late-night no-shows when it came to Jacob Zuma news, fires and other big South African news events that they had previously ignored and they all stayed with live anchoring and on-location reporting on Wednesday until past midnight.

SABC News reporters really stood out in their night-time, on-location, bright yellow and very professional looking reporter jackets.

SABC News also did the most live crossings, to the most reporters, with the widest range of commentators.

SABC News anchor Peter Ndoro was calm and collected and borderline "boring" and semi-detached throughout - an excellent anchor for the unfolding hurry-up-and-wait situation as he brought a sober, very matter-of-fact, fact-based approach to the SABC's conveying of the news.

The SABC News coverage style was objective, and Peter Ndoro and SABC News reporters were actually very careful in their language use - carefully denoting when they didn't know, noting precisely what little at times they did know, and with very little personal speculation and opinion.

eNCA was initially behind in Wednesday's "main match pre-show build-up", running a JJ Tabane studio-based talk show from Hyde Park while SABC News and Newzroom Afrika were giving on-the-ground reports at the same time.

From 21:30 onwards, eNCA improved with Shahan Ramkissoon in the NewsNight anchor chair, but the channel also damaged credibility and coverage with opinion-based injections and some bad "journalism" that detracted from eNCA delivering a fact-based, history-making night TV special that could proudly live in the video vault.

Shahan Ramkissoon seemed giddy at times and over-emoted a tad too much, conveying to viewers how incredible the night's constantly unfolding events were. It's fine to be excited but do you really want to be on a plane where you know that the pilot is actually hand-claspingly excited as well?

eNCA did damagingly bad "reporting", telling viewers in unsubstantiated claims that South Africa's Constitutional Court was considering a letter from Jacob Zuma, with eNCA citing "sources" and saying "we're hearing" and it's "unconfirmed". Why on Earth was eNCA then even verbalising this unconfirmed rumour-mongering on-air?

eNCA reporter Siphamandla Goge shined as the night's best reporter. He asked the most questions, led the pack of TV reporters camping out at Nkandla and excelled in drawing out new information from interviews and translating to viewers what protestors were doing and saying, as well as alertingeNCA when a Jacob Zuma convoy suddenly swerved out the gate and left for jail.

While it was a schadenfreude-filled, fun and frivolous watch, Shahan Ramkissoon who stayed live on eNCA after midnight - pitting JJ Tabane and the ever-caustic Mzwanele Manyi against each other in a to-and-fro shouting match - eNCA's Real House husbands of Mzansi trash-talking edition was ultimately empty news calorie newstainment.

Similar to Silindelo Masikane's tabloid-trash interview with Norma Mngoma on eNCA in December 2020, the on-air boxing match between JJ Tabane and Mzwanele Manyi didn't yield any actual news beyond more bloviating opinion and he-said, he-said rhetoric and did a disservice to eNCA.

While the copying of the low-brow opinion-based, infotainment style of commercial American TV news channels like FOX News and MSNBC do bring viewers short-term, it also damages the credibility of a channel like eNCA when it comes to fact-based news reporting over the longer run.

It was fun to watch Shahan Ramkissoon telling Mzwanele Manyi with a tinge of sarcasm to "also learn" from international spokespeople and to keep his answers short, but behaviour like this signals to guests and viewers that eNCA is unable to keep things professional and not personal.

The TV news channel very well knows who Mzwanele Manyi is and how he behaves - yet deliberately chose to invite him on and give him a massive amount of air-time on Wednesday night and into Thursday morning. 

At the end, Mzwanele Manyi remains a guest - an invited guest - and should be treated with respect even if he decides to be rude and arrogant.

On Newzroom Afrika, Thabo Mdluli anchored Wednesday night's coverage. Nothing was really wrong or bad but there wasn't anything unique about its news offering.

Although Newzroom Afrika didn't veer into the editorialising and opinion-infused infotainment of eNCA, it also didn't have the breadth of SABC News' reporting.

Newzroom Afrika seemed to run out of stream and got pipped to the post by SABC News and eNCA. A few times reporters looked a little bit frazzled and dazed. Perhaps SABC News and eNCA were as well but maybe hid it a bit better.

Luckily, Nkandla seemingly only had one entrance/exit and reporters and camera crew were waiting at the right place. Channels also dispatched reporters to prisons like Westville and eNCA arrived just in time at Estcourt Correction Centre.

A lot could have gone wrong in Wednesday night's coverage but luckily didn't. 

The three TV news channels could have captured more and could possibly have planned better with more and better quality commentators and analysts pre-booked and on-hand for the late hours but it's commendable that pay-TV viewers at least got what SABC News, eNCA and Newzroom Afrika provided.

Kudos that SABC News, eNCA and Newzroom Afrika remained live on Wednesday night. 

Bar eNCA's atrocious ConCourt rumours that isn't journalism, the three channels and their collective Zuma Arrest Watch coverage could have been better but for late-night coverage - that local channels are not really used to doing - was good enough.

TOLDJA! New TV news channel, Newzroom Afrika, to oddly launch on 2 May on MultiChoice's DStv with some familiar TV and radio names.

Exactly as TV biz insiders whispered, the new South African TV news channel Newzroom Afrika plans to launch on Thursday 2 May with news talent including the former eNCA stars Cathy Mohlahlana, Thulasizwe Simelane and Karyn Maughan who have jumped to front-face the new channel.

While MultiChoice and Newzroom Afrika executives in August 2018 when they announced the successful news channel bidder promised to keep the media updated on the channel's progress towards its "early-2019" launch, nothing had been forthcoming.

"We'll be sharing further details about the channel in the coming weeks," said Thabile Ngwato in the MultiChoice press release that was issued on 28 August 2018 but that was 8 months ago and Newzroom Afrika failed to share details with the media.

Thabile Ngwato's Rapid Innovation and Thokozani Nkosi's Eclipse TV are behind Newzroom Afrika that will directly compete against rivals like eNCA (DStv 403) and SABC News (DStv 404) in a highly-contested TV space for eyeballs and advertising rands and where eNCA lures more than 50% of the combined and existing TV news channels' audience on DStv.

Last week when asking MultiChoice in a media enquiry whether Newzroom Afrika will be launching on 2 May, Benedict Maaga, MultiChoice spokesperson, said MultiChoice can't confirm any dates.

Newzroom Afrika suddenly announced on Monday evening that it will be going live on Thursday late-afternoon.

Although missing its "early-2019" launch date, its second quarter activation means that Newzroom Afrika will try to gain viewers in the few days remaining to do pre-election coverage in the lead up to South Africa's national elections on 8 May.

On Thursday Newzroom Afrika, will take over the open channel spot on channel 405 on MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV service left vacant after it axed the controversial Gupta family's ANN7 channel that was acquired by Mzwanele Manyi and rebranded as Afro Worldview until it shut down in August last year.

While the programming line-up, content and on-air talent of Newzroom Afrika isn't known, other media talent who will be involved with Newzroom Afrika include some established radio and TV voices and faces including several Power FM name-brands.

Newzroom Afrika on Monday night listed Liezle Wilson, Thami Ngubeni, Sizwe Dhlomo, Gugulethu Mhlungu, Natasha Thorp, Thabo Mdluli, JJ Tabane, Aubrey Masango, Marc Lewis, Jacob Moshokoa, Bongiwe Zwane, and the former Afro Worldview editor Mpho Sithole as now being a part of the TV news channel.

Journalist Karyn Maughan has also been hired, as well as Ayabonga Cawe. 

According to the DStv electronic programme guide (EPG), none of the information which has been shared with the media, Newzroom Afrika programming will include a morning news show, Breaking Dawn, with presenters Sizwe Dhlomo, Carmen Reddy and Gugu Mhlungu.

Other programming will be shows like Newzfeed and Business Unusual.

Newzroom Afrika's flagship news show will be Newz@Prime (or NewsAtPrime) anchored by Cathy Mohlahlana and Marc Lewis as sports editor.

As Thursday's 2 May launch date looms for Newzroom Afrika, DStv Media Sales, MultiChoice's advertising selling arm, apparently entered into a commercial partnership with Newzroom Afrika from 24 April to sell on-air advertising on behalf of the channel.

In March 2019 Newzroom Afrika started a recruitment process looking for reporters, producers, editors and people to fill various other positions.

Insiders last week said they hope that Newzroom Afrika will be able to sidestep the mistakes of ANN7's disastrous on-air launch that immediately went viral with lasting damage to that channel's credibility.

With Wednesday's Workers' Day as a public holiday in South Africa and the odd launch date the day after, there's been no word from either MultiChoice that was asked, nor Newzroom Afrika about a possible press briefing about the news channel, or of a media launch event to mark its start on DStv as usually happens when new TV channels launch.

Newzroom Afrika will be available to all DStv subscribers from DStv Premium to DStv Access.

HORRIFICALLY BAD. [ED] on DStv rivals the SABC with black screen, sound problems, manic promos cuts and total chaos as live broadcast gets totally botched.

On Thursday and again on Friday [ED] (DStv 190) the educational channel on MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV platform definitely gave an education: an education in how not to do television.

After horrifically bad interruptions, blackouts, promos starting and stopping and being cut off, interviews being cut off and terrible sound problems on Thursday trying to do live broadcasts from the Sandton Convention Centre at the Discop Africa 2015 TV market, [ED] repeated it all on Friday ... and went one step further, with no sound at all.

The irony of the [ED] channel surpassing the SABC in terrible on-screen disasters wasn't lost on viewers, since the Urban Brew Studios channel was trying to highlight and focus on television itself.

Instead [ED] and Urban Brew Studios' eye-poppingly bad production, broadcast disruption and terrible production values became the story.

There was no explanation from [ED] and Urban Brew Studios for the ongoing problems and why [ED]'s live broadcast was interrupted on Friday after sound problems gave viewers a silent channel - a channel which is seen in South Africa and across the African continent on DStv and GOtv.

It's anybody's guess how many viewers were still left or bothered to wait when [ED] eventually went back to the live broadcast on Friday marred by production problems, similar to Thursday when a guest had to to be given a handheld mic and the video signal cut out.

[ED] tried to do twice daily live broadcast sit-down interviews from Discop Africa 2015 but it looked and was for the most part totally terrible and reflected badly on [ED], Urban Brew Studios and DStv broadcasting the mess of a channel.

The [ED] "live broadcast" Discop Africa shows were astoundingly amateurly produced.

It had some inappropriately chosen guests, an unprepared host who didn't seem to know enough about various aspects of television to ask relevant enough questions, bizarre breaks, starting and stopping and interrupting promos and ongoing sound problems as well as too soft sound.

Add in terrible switches between promos, recorded interviews suddenly being played as filler, as well as very poor, pixelated video quality, and [ED] looked like a poor African country's disastrously underfunded public broadcasting channel struggling desperately to find the "on" and "zoom" and "volume" buttons.

Of course the live broadcasts and interviews were about the business of television - hugely ironic given the utter, ongoing mess [ED] made of trying to cover Discop Africa 2015 with very little quality.

More embarrassing was that Markus Davies, the chief content officer of Urban Brew Studios was part of the on-air panel discussions on [ED] on Thursday and again on Friday ... while the Urban Brew Studios content being broadcast was laughably shoddy and completely terrible.

"Welcome to channel [ED], we do apologise for that interruption in broadcast, technically, we are sorted and we are back on track," said presenter Thabo Mdluli when [ED] eventually returned to the interrupted live broadcast on Friday which abrutly ended after several long minutes of zero sound.

The big irony is that if film and TV students produced this TV trash in studio for an assignment they would get a fail.

Yet Urban Brew Studios, the [ED] channel and MultiChoice produced and broadcast it for real -  atrociously badly as it is - as part of a pay-TV product that's supposed to be much, much better, but that is actually so much worse than what the SABC churns out.

Why do a live broadcast from location if you don't have the skills or are not devoting, or don't have, the resources necessary to do it properly? Why then not rather record it, edit it and play it out later?

Why are producers not pre-screening the guests for what they might talk about? Its terrible to put people on television who are not advancing the/a story, and who are not enlightening or informing or educating the audience, and who just play for time or waste time.

If you have audio, video and other technical problems, why are people not working late and actually fixing it, replacing equipment and adding resources? The same thing kept/keeps happening because the same thing will happen if you do nothing about it.

Everybody talks about how South Africa's TV biz needs to be taken more seriously. But we can't and we won't because we keep doing Kideo television.