eNCA drops simulcast of e.tv's The Morning Show and switches back to own-produced The South African Morning after 4 days of viewer outrage.

by Thinus Ferreira

Following a serious miscalculation of what pay-TV viewers want to watch in the mornings, as well as days of unrelenting viewer outrage, eNCA (DStv 403) on Friday morning brought back The South African Morning without any explanation after four days of simulcastin e.tv's low-rated The Morning Show.

On Monday eMedia's eNCA TV news channel - as part of yet another on-air and logo rebrand, dropped its The South African Morning time-block, replacing it with e.tv's The Morning Show between 06:00 and 09:00, produced by Cheeky Media with Yusuf Stevens as executive producer.

The Morning Show also added Faith Mangope to the softer lifestyle-slanted show which does sponsored inserts with a lesser emphasis on news and that bears more liking to SABC3's Expresso.

The drastic change prompted unrelenting viewer scorn the past four days with the drastic eNCA schedule change which was met with a barrage of DStv subscribers slamming the channel for replacing the much more newsy strand, co-anchored by the well-liked Gareth Edwards and Tumelo Mothotoane, with the lower production values of The Morning Show.

Viewers were fuming over The Morning Show - which bears no relation to the Apple TV+ drama series of the same name - with presenters who were berated for doing book segments at 6:15am and frivolous lifestyle segment discussions as they stumbled over words, sound and video problems, eating KFC on air, and the softer show's lack of news.

An avalanche of viewers were very vocal over the fact that they have access to e.tv and The Morning Show as a channel on DStv and would watch that if they wanted to.

Viewers said that they were now tuning out eNCA and switching to rival Newzroom Afrika (DStv 405) and SABC2's Morning Live which remains the perennial frontrunner in the South African morning breakfast show TV ratings race.

On Friday morning, The South African Morning was suddenly back without explanation, with Gareth Edwards once again anchoring the early morning time-block but this time solo. Tumelo Mothotoane anchored the NewsLink block solo from 9:00 to 12:00.

eMedia, in response to a media query about eNCA's morning fracas and the switchback, told TVwithThinus on Friday afternoon that "Due to popular demand, The South African Morning returns to eNCA with Gareth Edwards from 6:00 to 9:00. Tumelo will be on-air from 9:00 to 12:00. We have reunited viewers with the news and entertainment they are used to".

eNCA initially decided to cancel The South African Morning and simulcast e.tv's The Morning Show to rather stretch its production of live news hours from 22:00 until midnight, in response to competition from Newzroom Afrika. 

Although placing The South African Morning back on its schedule as an own in-house production, eNCA will continue to now stay in live news programming until midnight. 

Also returning to eNCA is anchor Shahan Ramkissoon who left a year ago, who is now anchoring The Last Word on Thursday snd Friday nights at 20:00.

ALSO READ: 'Useless rubbish' and 'a huge disaster': Shocked and angry DStv subscribers slam eNCA saying they're switching to Newzroom Afrika and SABC's Morning Live over decision to simulcast e.tv's 'totally poor and amateurish' The Morning Show.

ALSO READ: Latest rebrand 'a new era for eNCA,' says managing director as TV news channel want viewers to question more and 'create hope with our new positioning'.

ALSO READ: Faith Mangope joins e.tv's revamped The Morning Show added to eNCA as simulcast programming.

ALSO READ: eNCA in May revamp with yet another new logo and schedule changes, Shahan Ramkissoon makes anchor return as channel dumps own show to simulcast e.tv's The Morning Show, will stay live until midnight.

Coronavirus: The Morning Show returns to e.tv for its third iteration now with William Lehong and Nelisiwe Nxumalo fronting the virtual blue screen show as co-anchors after backstage production shake-up.

by Thinus Ferreira

e.tv's The Morning Show returned to the airwaves this morning for its third iteration, a month and a half after the struggling breakfast show shuttered production because of the Covid-19 coronavirus, losing presenters and behind-the-scenes crew, now opting for a virtual set and with William Lehong and Nelisiwe Nxumalo as co-anchors.

The former anchors Tumelo Mothotoane and Clement Manyathela are gone.

On Monday morning neither William Lehong nor Nelisiwe Nxumalo explained the rebrand, the absence of any of the former presenters or any of the behind-the-scenes drama, but did mention the new virtual set and that the show is glad to be back after the easing of Covid-19 lockdown regulations.

The Cheeky Media produced morning show shuttered for a combination of movies and kids morning programming on e.tv over the past 6 weeks.

SABC News and SABC2's breakfast show and the country's most-watched morning show, Morning Live that is produced in-house by the South African public broadcaster, as well as Expresso on SABC3 produced by the external production company Cardova Productions, both remained on-air.

In March after e.tv pulled The Morning Show off the air following the South African government's regulations surrounding the country's Covid-19 national lockdown period, Cheeky Media told the crew of the Johannesburg-based The Morning Show that they were out of jobs and were told to apply for unemployment at the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF).

"We're facing trying times, with our key clients having cancelled campaigns and cut down spend as they too are unsure of what the next couple of months will entail," Cheeky Media told staffers in a letter in late-March letting them go.

"We write to you to, our loyal and trusted staff, with the sole objective to provide transparency in these unclear times. Please take note that based on the feedback from e.tv today [26 March 2020], Cheeky Media will, with immediate effect, suspend all business activities until further notice."

"As of today, Cheeky Media will specifically terminate all permanent and fixed-term contracts, as well as services rendered by independent contractors. Any payment due to you will be pro-rated for the month of March, up to and including 26 March. This is a tough decision for us and all businesses alike, to make."

Now The Morning Show has been reconstituted and is once again on-air between 06:00 and 08:00 but once again with noticeable differences in the latest relaunch since it replaced Sunrise two years ago.

It's the third iteration of The Morning Show, now using a virtual desk and digitally super-imposed backdrop with William Lehong and Nelisiwe Nxumalo who are back and now the co-anchors of the blue screen show. Cheeky Media plans to make further appointments as the show gears up production again.

"The Morning Show has been a stellar performing production, and we look forward to its return," says Marlon Davids, e.tv managing director, in a prepared statement. "We believe that with the lockdown still in place, our viewers will appreciate the fresh current affairs, lifestyle, and topical discussion content that will be on offer this coming week."

Yusuf Stevens, Cheeky Media managing director, in the statement says "Being home during the lockdown gave us a much-needed refresh and allowed us to strategise remotely as a team - we’ve never had this amount of time for pre-production".

"We naturally still have quite a bit of constraint in terms of producing and what we are allowed to do, but this won’t stop us from shaking things up within the confines of the rules. We cannot wait for you to see the 'new' Morning Show."

ALSO READ: Coronavirus: e.tv’s The Morning Show off-air, crew and presenters of the Cheeky Media produced show all axed over Covid-19 national shutdown.

A fibre-break takes e.tv's The Morning Show off-air on Friday.

A "fibre-break" took e.tv's The Morning Show, done from Steyn City, off-air on Friday morning.

e.tv says technical problems due to a fibre-break is to blame for the broadcast interruption of The Morning Show that is broadcast between 06:00 and 08:00.

"This was due to a technical issue. There was a fibre-break in the Sandton/Rivonia area in Johannesburg, which affected Telemedia. At 07:09 the fibre-break was fixed, and the video link was immediately re-established," says an e.tv spokesperson.

At some point the presenters of The Morning Show on e.tv changed yet again but there was no word or official announcement from e.tv about it when it happened.

In response to a media enquiry about why and when The Morning Show changed again, e.tv tells TVwithThinus that the show, produced by Cheeky Media, now has Clement Manyathela, William Lehong and Tumelo Mothotoane as the three presenters.

The rest have quietly been fired after just a few months since the start of The Morning Show.

"Our new presenters are Clement Manyathela and William Lehong. Tumelo Mothotoane was joined by Clement in November and William in December," says e.tv.

"We added new presenters as the show changed its editorial direction late last year. The Morning Show now has less lifestyle content and a greater focus on current affairs."

e.tv dumps its breakfast show Sunrise after a decade, replaces it with the outsourced The Morning Show.

e.tv has dumped its struggling, long-running breakfast show Sunrise and its staffers after exactly a decade, and outsourced and replaced it with The Morning Show that started today.

Sunrise's on-air talent - the well-liked Penny Lebyane, Mark Haskins, Faith Mangope and news anchor Marc Chase - as well as the e.tv staffers who worked on the in-house show are gone.

They've been replaced by The Morning Show that is now produced by Cheeky Media, also responsible for Real Talk with Anele on SABC3 and that produced the second season of the advertiser-funded production (AFP) She's the One for e.tv in September 2015.

The Morning Show is now being presented by comedian Jason Goliath, Michaella Russell, Tumelo Mothotoane and Tino Chinyadi.

Interestingly Australian television's one breakfast show is called Sunrise as well, and the other one The Morning Show.

e.tv's breakfast show change is part of ongoing restructuring, firings and resignations at e.tv and its TV news channel eNCA (DStv 403), with a well-placed and longtime e.tv insider that described the environment inside e.tv as "toxic, depressing, sad and not human".

Another e.tv insider said that "morale is at an all time low and people are desperately searching for new jobs". 

Staffers were called and last week abruptly told by Marlon Davids, managing director of e.tv, in a meeting that Friday would be the last episode of Sunrise according to insiders with knowledge of what transpired.  

e.tv didn't respond with answers to questions put to the channel in a written media enquiry made multiple times last week asking about what is happening with Sunrise, where the presenters are and what is happening to them, with e.tv that doesn't want to talk about the axing of the show.

TVwithThinus reported in early March when word first leaked that e.tv is canning Sunrise as part of the channel's latest downsizing, when fear and anxiety gripped staffers who were told that they're facing retrenchment, including security personnel and cleaners.

Sunrise has been on-air since 1 April 2008 when it replaced Morning Edition, and which in turn replaced e.tv's first try at breakfast television, The Toasty Show.

Now Sunrise - that over the past few years with limited resources struggled to complete with SABC2's more newsy Morning Live and SABC3's more preppy Expresso - is gone after exactly 10 years after it cycled through several executive producers the past few years and with at least one in recent years who was asked to leave immediately and exited under a cloud after serving less than a year.

Ironically e.tv is outsourcing The Morning Show and doing the opposite of what the SABC tried and already discovered years ago wasn't working then. 

The SABC outsourced it's morning show, AM2Day that was produced by Urban Brew Studios, before cancelling it and starting the existing Morning Live that has been successfully running as in-house production, and South Africa's most watched morning show, ever since.

According to e.tv insiders who witnessed it, one of the Sunrise presenters who was allegedly not given proper written notice, came in anyway to e.tv's Hyde Park headquarters where the show is produced from, only to discover that access was removed from the person's tag with new security not wanting to let the person in.

After finally getting into the building the person was apparently told they won't be allowed on-air and allegedly made to sit in a corner of the newsroom, described by bystanders as a humiliating experience. e.tv was asked about this but didn't respond.

In a prepared statement e.tv issued Friday afternoon to select media, the channel said "e.tv viewers' mornings will be revamped and revitalised with The Morning Show making its premiere at 6:00" on Monday 7 May.

"We are confident our viewers will thoroughly enjoy waking up to The Morning Show," said Marlon Davids, in the statement.

According to Marlon Davids, The Morning Show "is a fresh, daily, live breakfast show bringing you news and views about South Africa, pan-Africa, and the world at large. Viewers will kick-start their day with a nutritional dose of current affairs, fitness, infotainment, cooking, comedy, sports, trends and much more."

Besides the brief statement there's been no pre-publicity for The Morning Show from e.tv before the show's launch today, with TV channels that usually invite media for set visits and do rounds of panel interviews with the press especially for shows that are broadcast more than one day a week, and are new, like The Morning Show that will be running every weekday.

Tumelo Mothotoane dumps the SABC and SABC News to join Russia Today as international correspondent and anchor.

Tumelo Mothotoane has dumped the SABC and will be leaving SABC News at the end of this month to join Russia's Russia Today (DStv 407).

"It is with emotional feelings that I officially announce that I am leaving the SABC at the end of March," says Tumelo Mothotoane who will join RT as an international correspondent and anchor.

Tumelo Mothotoane whose middle name is "Fortunate" presented Sistas on SowetoTV (DStv 261) for 3 years since she was 18, before moving to the SABC where she's the presenter of the current affairs show Sunday Live on SABC1 and anchored the news during AM Live on SABC News (DStv 404).

At RT, Tumelo Mothotoane will join the fellow South African, Thabang Motsei who've been working there for the past few years already.