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ANN7’s ‘Fart Hare’ slip-up has SA laughing!

Cape Town – ANN7 (DStv 405) made South Africans laugh on Friday when the Gupta-owned TV news channel on MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV platform kept showing viewers "Fart Hare" instead of the Fort Hare University.

This is just the latest on-air gaffe from the DStv channel owned Infinity Media that's infamous for slip-ups which included a report that a “plane was shot dead".

On Friday ANN7 treated DStv subscribers with the University of “Fart Hare” where president Jacob Zuma and Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe were set to appear to mark the embattled tertiary institution's centenary that's been marred by violence and vandalism the past few days.

South African social media users had a ball at ANN7's expense with Chris Snelling saying that ANN7 should be moved "out of news section of DStv and relocated to comedy channels".

"Fartoo many mistakes," said Charles Leonard, while Kenichi Serino said, "Yes, ANN7 has been running a chyron all morning calling the alma mater of Mandela and Robert Mugabe: "Fart Hare"."

"One would have expected ANN7 to have outgrown their startup teething problems! No such luck!" said Lex Middelberg.

"No man, DStv, why do you all let people do this? Fix this," said Sixo.

Earlier this month news surfaced that MultiChoice is reportedly ready to cut ANN7 from DStv in August when the existing contract with Infinity Media runs out due to ongoing complaints from DStv subscribers regarding anchor changes, an inconsistent programming schedule that constantly changes and ongoing widespread on-air mistakes.

MultiChoice told Channel24 that reports that MultiChoice is "considering pulling the plug" on ANN7 is "untrue and incorrect".

ANN7 struggles with ongoing dismal viewership on DStv with its viewership that fell in 2016.

According to viewership research by AGB Nielsen Media Research, ANN7 in March 2016 only had a paltry viewership share of 8.83% among MultiChoice's range of news channels on DStv.

That is off from the 10.66% share it had in February 2016 and down from its 10.15% share in March last year.

ANN7 also keeps making headlines for all the wrong reasons for ongoing personnel drama behind the scenes and frequent anchor resignations and abrupt on-air changes.

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