OpenView HD to get own news channel

eMedia Investments, the company that produces the 24-hour news channel eNCA for MultiChoice’s DStv, has announced it will launch a second news channel, called OpenNews, which will be available exclusively through its OpenView HD free-to-air satellite platform.

eMedia, which also owns e.tv, will launch OpenNews in the fourth quarter of 2018, it said in a statement on Tuesday. The new channel will have its own management team and identity and will “look distinctively different” to eNCA, it said. It will be broadcast in standard definition to start, but may be switched to HD later.

“OpenNews will be broadcast out of the Cape Town studios, offering viewers an integrated news channel combining short format news, onscreen information and links with selected social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram, and a proprietary app,” eMedia CEO André van der Veen said in the statement.

“eMedia Investments has the talent, knowledge and experience to launch South Africa’s first satellite free-to-air television news channel. OpenNews will be an independent news service, but hosts will be encouraged to ‘to take a view’ on regional, international, sports, entertainment and financial news,” said Van der Veen.

The channel will syndicate recently launched entertainment programme, The Spotlight with Tanya Nefdt, and two new current affairs shows: The Tim Modise Show and The Fix with Karima Brown.

OpenView HD is a freely available direct-to-home satellite TV network. More than 1.2m people have activated the OpenView set-top box.

At the same time, eMedia said it will also launch a two-hour block of Afrikaans programming on eExtra (available on OpenView channel 105 and DStv channel 195). The block will include entertainment, current affairs programming and a news bulletin. “The programme mix is in the final stages of being finalised and the line-up will be announced in the next few weeks,” the company said.  — © 2018 NewsCentral Media