NEWS RELEASE

07/06/2007

NEWS LAUNCHES NEW CHANNEL WITH AFRICAN PERSCPECTIVE

SABC will launch Africa’s first news channel tonight, aimed at providing an African perspective on domestic and international stories.

SABC News International, a channel with a Pan-African focus and reach will go to air for the first time at 6pm on June 7, 2007. The launch will include live feeds from SABC’s six international bureaus in Kenya, DRC, Washington, Brussels, New York, Senegal and Nigeria.

Initially, the channel will be broadcast via Sentech’s Vivid Satellite Digital Decoder which currently broadcasts to Sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Europe. In addition to news bulletins, the channel will feature current affairs and investigative programmes, including news magazine shows which will incorporate broader content like weather, sports, and economic news and studio interviews. The channel will also include French news bulletins which are currently streamed live on the SABC News website.

SABC News International will replace the SABC Africa overnight feed on SABC 2.

Dr Zikalala, SABC Group Executive for News & Current Affairs,  says “with the establishment of SABC News bureaus within Africa such as Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Kenya and overseas countries such as New York, Washington, London and Brussels; and in the pipeline are following countries; Jamaica, Peoples Republic of China, Brazil, Zimbabwe, Nigeria and Senegal. SABC News is sure to deliver news from an African perspective – which will form part of a broader and long-term plan of selling content to other broadcasters in Africa and beyond”.

Dr Zikalala added that there is already considerable interest from African, American and European broadcasters in carrying the channel.
“June 7 sees the soft-launch of the channel, where we will be using the Vivid platform to build our schedule and develop capacity. The formal launch of the channel will take place on July 20, which we as SABC News are very excited about,” Dr Zikalala said.

SABC News International will initially broadcast weekdays only. As from April 2008 it will have a full 24-hour schedule.