by Thinus Ferreira
eMedia has confirmed that its has axed its etv News & Sport TV channel on its Openview satellite service with roughly 40 staffers losing their jobs.
“The eNews & Sport Channel (channel 120) will no longer be available from midnight on 31 March 2022,” eMedia said. eMedia didn’t provide any reason.
eMedia launched the unique OpenNews, primarily produced from Cape Town, three years ago in November 2018 on its Openview free-to-air satellite TV service.
It was South Africa’s first free-to-air TV news channel from a commercial company with the aim of bringing viewers across Southern Africa a new additional TV news choice, more views and more diverse news coverage.
Managing director Marlon Davids, told staffers in Section 189 letters that the company has “reassessed the positioning of channel 120 in the Openview bouquet” and that the etv News & Sport channel was “no longer viable as a news service and therefore no longer supports the operational requirements”.
Staffers were told that etv News & Sport is “not a sustainable or effective channel” in the Openview bouquet “and it will not appeal to audiences as a documentary and current affairs channel” and is therefore shut down.
eMedia also supplies the eNCA (DStv 403) TV news channel to MultiChoice’s DStv satellite pay-TV service.