Going off the air

DStv has confirmed, in a short message to subscribers that the AfroWorldView news channel, formerly known as ANN7 would go off the air on August 20.

Earlier this year Multichoice announced that it would stop carrying the channel.

This came after the public fallout over the Gupta emails which showed that Multichoice, which operates DStv, had inexplicably paid R25 million to the Guptaowned channel, and had increased its annual carriage fee from R50 million to R141 million.

In August last year the Guptas sold their media properties to former GCIS boss Mzwanele Manyi’s Afrotone, valuing The New Age newspaper at R150 million and ANN7 at R300 million, through a vendor financing deal.

In June the newspaper shut its doors, and last month Manyi went to court seeking for the paper to be liquidated. In court papers he said the newspaper was financially insolvent and there were no prospects of its rescue.

A reporter at AfroWorldView last night said workers at the station, which went on air in August 2013, had been kept in the dark.

“We have not been told anything. The last thing we were told was that our jobs are safe,” said the journalist.

Following the announcement that DStv would yank the channel off its platform earlier this year, the Communications Workers Union (CWU) had sought to safeguard the jobs at the station.

“CWU has told us throughout that our jobs are safe. If AfroWorldView goes off air, the new entrant will try and absorb us,” said the journalist.

In its announcement that the former Gupta-owned channel would go off air, Multichoice also announced that a new “blackowned” news channel would replace AfroWorldView, and sought applications from prospective bidders.

More than 60 entities applied for the bid, and while the successful bidder would have been announced at the end of July, this had been delayed by Multichoice.

CWU spokesperson Aubrey Tshabalala said the union was hopeful that workers at station would be absorbed by the new broadcaster.

He said two of the union’s shop stewards were on Monday suspended by AfroWorldView’s management when they sought to discuss the issue of the company’s future with the fellow workers.

“They were told that they were trying to sabotage the business,” said Tshabalala.

Manyi contacted for comment, said he would only respond via text message and had failed to do so at the time of publishing.