While the introduction of new satellite broadcasters into the South African market is floundering, e.tv is less than a month away from launching its 24-hour news channel on the DStv bouquet.
The new studios and newsrooms were bristling with activity this week when editor-in-chief Debora Patta took the Mail & Guardian on a walk-through.
The 100-plus new staffers, with the more seasoned journalists and anchors from e.News, were being put through their paces in dry runs to prepare for the news channel’s launch in June.
“We will start with our 24-hour news cycle from Monday,” says Patta as she surveys the newsroom. “We are also stress-testing the new equipment. It’s all very well to have a couple of people logged in, but when everyone is logged in and you have a 24-hour news cycle going, you find the pressure points.”
Viewers can expect a state-of-the-art news studio filled with the latest and greatest in new technologies, such as touch-screen plasmas and robotically controlled cameras, but the success of the news channel will depend on e.tv’s ability to get the content mix right.
“You have to get the balance right,” says Patta. “We are not looking to reinvent the wheel, there is a certain formula for 24-hour news that works.”
Patta says e.News undertook a number of study trips during its research for the 24-hour news channel, visiting news giants such as Sky, BBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and al Jazeera.
“Those trips were useful because they helped us to establish what works and what doesn’t,” says Patta.
e.tv has already shown it has an aptitude for getting news right. Its prime-time news bulletin is the fastest-growing English news channel in the country, having grown from a 4,4% market share in 1998 to a 20% market share in 2007.
The e.News 7pm slot has a viewership of 1,6-million compared with SABC3’s 7pm news viewership of 1,1-million.
Patta says the game plan is to launch with the basics of the 24-hour news channel in place and then to add to the mix as the channel develops.
The basics include three core news shows, Morning News Today (6am to 9am), Lunchtime Live (1pm to 4pm) and News Night (7pm to 9pm).
Half-hour current affairs programmes, which will focus on Africa, media, business, politics, sport, investigations, news analysis, interviews and showbiz will complement these core news shows.
“That’s where we are going to start,” says Patta. “We didn’t want to do a million things to start off with.
“This is what we know we can do and we will take it from there and grow,” she says. “We are looking at a number of additional current affairs proposals, but those will be six months down the line.”
e.News has head-hunted some top broadcasting talent for its news channel, including former SAfm presenter Jeremy Maggs and Talk Radio 702 presenter Redi Direko, who will anchor the 7pm to 9pm News Night slot.
Patta says Maggs will present a new half-hour media show, Maggs on Media, which he used to produce on radio for SAfm.
“Pat Pillai is doing an entrepreneurial business show for us, Justice Malala is doing a political show and there will be Third Degree Plus, an additional half-hour of Third Degree, which is interactive so the viewers can do the grilling,” says Patta. “There is also an additional showbiz show and lots of sport on the weekends.”
Patta says non-DStv subscribers will still get the e.News prime-time news bulletin unchanged.
“The 24-hour news channel will probably make it stronger,” says Patta, “because it will have more to draw from.
“We have a dedicated terrestrial, prime-time team with the same anchors and it will continue exactly as it is now. It is our bread and butter, it’s what we make our money from and it’s what made our name and our brand.”
Caxton professor of journalism at the University of the Witwatersrand Anton Harber is impressed with e.News’s new studio and technology.
“It takes our TV news into the 21st century,” says Harber. “Our news has been stuck where global news was 10 years ago.
“The key is the capacity to break big news stories, locally and later in Africa,” says Harber.