eNCA switches back to The South African Morning after viewer outrage

• The South African Morning show is back on eNCA after four days of simulcasting e.tv's The Morning Show.
• The drastic change prompted unrelenting viewer scorn the past four days as it was met with a barrage of DStv subscribers slamming the channel for replacing the newsy strand.
• eMedia said in a statement: "Due to popular demand, The South African Morning returns to eNCA with Gareth Edwards from 6:00 to 9:00."

eNCA brought back The South African Morning show without any explanation after four days of simulcasting e.tv's The Morning Show.

On Monday eMedia's eNCA (DStv 403) TV news channel, as part of another on-air and logo rebrand, replaced The South African Morning time-block with e.tv's The Morning Show between 06:00 and 09:00.

The Morning Show also added Faith Mangope to the softer lifestyle-slanted show, which does sponsored inserts with a lesser emphasis on news and bears more liking to SABC3's Expresso.

The drastic change prompted unrelenting viewer scorn the past four days as it was met with a barrage of DStv subscribers slamming the channel for replacing the newsy strand, co-anchored by Gareth Edwards and Tumelo Mothotoane, with the lower production values of The Morning Show.

Viewers were fuming over The Morning Show as presenters stumbled over words and were plagued with sound and video problems; they were also vocal over having access to e.tv and The Morning Show as a channel on DStv and would watch that if they wanted to.

Viewers said they were now tuning out eNCA and switching to rival Newzroom Afrika (DStv 405) and SABC2's Morning Live, which remains the perennial frontrunner in the South African morning breakfast show TV ratings race.

On Friday morning, The South African Morning was suddenly back without explanation, with Edwards once again anchoring the early morning time block, but this time solo. Mothotoane anchored the NewsLink block solo from 9:00 to 12:00.

eMedia, in response to a media query about eNCA's morning fracas and the switchback, told News24 on Friday afternoon: "Due to popular demand, The South African Morning returns to eNCA with Gareth Edwards from 6:00 to 9:00. Tumelo will be on-air from 9:00 to 12:00. We have reunited viewers with the news and entertainment they are used to."

eNCA initially decided to cancel The South African Morning and simulcast e.tv's The Morning Show to rather stretch its production of live news hours from 22:00 until midnight in response to competition from Newzroom Afrika.

Although placing The South African Morning back on its schedule as its own in-house production, eNCA will continue to now stay in live news programming until midnight.

Also returning to eNCA is anchor Shahan Ramkissoon, who left a year ago, and is now anchoring The Last Word on Thursday and Friday nights at 20:00.