SABC Celebrates major Milestone with launch of 24-hour News channel 'SABC News'

SABC CELEBRATES MAJOR MILESTONE WITH LAUNCH OF 24-HOUR NEWS CHANNEL ‘SABC NEWS’

Johannesburg – Thursday 01 August 2013 - The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) today celebrated two major milestones, firstly with the launch of its 24-Hour News Channel, which will be broadcast on Multichoice South Africa’s platform DStv, on channel 404. The channel has been named ‘SABC News’. It also marks a remarkable day for SABC, but most importantly the South African public, as on this day 77 years ago, the SABC was born and it has been a challenging but great journey where we strived for excellent broadcasting.

The country’s President, the Honourable Jacob Zuma, officially opened the channel as the first guest. This first broadcast gave viewers an insight into the way the SABC will structure its daily newscasts on the hour, focusing on news, business, current affairs and sport.  One of the highlights of the first broadcast was the crossing over to Zimbabwe to get up-to-date information about the elections which are happening there.

The 24-Hour News channel will also be available on the Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) platform, once the migration or switch from analogue to digital signal takes place.

The SABC’s Acting Chief Operations Officer, Mr. Hlaudi Motsoeneng stated that for the public service broadcaster “This platform is a great opportunity the SABC, as it will enhance its public service mandate as we will be extending our focus on provincial stories and the different official languages”.

“One of the key issues which was facing the SABC was the limited space available on the three television channels, in terms of News slots, and this inadvertently meant that provincial stories did not receive due coverage.  This channel will definitely go a long way in solving this problem, and the public of South Africa will also appreciate hearing news in their preferred languages.  This is a key feature of the channel as all 11 official languages will be catered for, although initially the channel will broadcast predominately in English in the first phase and other languages will be phased in incrementally” concluded Mr. Motsoeneng.

As the SABC is operating in an environment, where technology is constantly evolving, it was imperative that the systems which will be used for the 24-hour news channel were some of the latest in the broadcasting field.  In this regard the organisation built a multi-million rand infrastructure for its new 24-Hour News channel, which is Studio 9, and has invested in the recruitment and training of additional news staff.

The channel will therefore be using a sQ Server system from Quantel, which will replace the Vortex Pinnacle.  In addition we have changed our newsroom system from Newstar to ENPS.  Although the SABC will launch the news channel in in 16:9 SD, all systems are HD capable.

SABC Interim Board Chairperson, Ms. Zandile Tshabalala said “We have invested in massive technology and human capital for incomparable news gathering capacity and this will therefore maintain the SABC’s position as South Africa’s news and information leader”.

“We will also tap into the global space to reflect South Africa, the African continent and the world.  It is pleasing to announce that the SABC will use its existing newsrooms in all provinces to maximize its efforts to achieve and reflect South African human interest stories without worrying about space in our current television news offerings” concluded Ms. Tshabalala.

With the SABC having 11 existing newsroom across the respective provinces in the country, the SABC already has the majority of resources in place to populate a 24-Hour News schedule.

Each newsroom is fully staffed with journalists and all the tools and resources that are required for news gathering.

These 11 newsrooms, on a daily basis, produce more content than can be accommodated in the normal terrestrial television bulletins, therefore the 24-Hour News channel will be instrumental in expanding the coverage and the voice of South Africans across the country.

These newsrooms have the capacity to produce between 30 and 40 stories daily.  The 24-Hour News channel provides us with the capacity to absorb all those stories without having to spend any additional money.  All these bureaus/newsrooms are already fully connected to the Johannesburg headquarters by way of microwave, fibre optic or satellite links.

In addition, the SABC owns a fleet of outside broadcast vehicles (OB’s and MPU’s) spread throughout the country.  These broadcast units will be fully utilized in the newsgathering process.

The channel will be headlined by seasoned journalists such as Peter Ndoro and new on-air presenters such as Ayanda –Allie Paine.

ENDS

Issued By:                           Group Communications

Media Enquiries:               Mr. Kaizer Kganyago

                                                SABC Spokesperson

                                                082 306 8888