MultiChoice to reveal replacement for Afro Worldview (ANN7) next week

MultiChoice says it will reveal the successful bidder to replace Afro Worldview on August 28. The television channel‚ previously known as the Gupta-owned ANN7‚ stopped airing at midnight on Monday.

“MultiChoice announced that it would source a new black-owned news channel and invited interested parties to bid‚” the company said in a statement on Tuesday.

MultiChoice spokesperson Kenneth Nxumalo confirmed the company would pull the plug on the channel that started in 2013‚ just hours after staff members were informed not to report for duty on Tuesday.

Communications Workers Union (CWU) secretary-general Aubrey Tshabalala said they were disappointed at how management had handled the demise of the channel.

“Management should be upfront with workers to say what will happen (when the channel is cut off). Are workers going to stay at home? What will happen to their salaries? Those are the things that we felt that management was not upfront with them [about]‚” Tshabalala said.

Afrotone Media Holdings chairperson Mzwanele Manyi‚ who took over the channel from the Gupta family‚ said on Monday evening: “I am not talking to media on Afro Worldview business, on any issue whatsoever.”

He had earlier tweeted a photograph of the staff and said: “Dear South Africa‚ please put this innocent team of breadwinners in your prayers. They NEED their jobs.”

Tshabalala said they were in negotiations with MultiChoice‚ which had apparently agreed that the new licensee would absorb the current employees.

“Here we are not talking about executive people who have a lot in their coffers. We are talking about working people who rely on their monthly salary‚ so a day or two without a salary is disastrous.”

Manyi said in July that Afro Worldview's association with the Gupta family had created an unshakeable perception that it was an integral part of “state capture”‚ earlier leading to the collapse of the Afro Voice newspaper previously know as The New Age. It published its last edition on June 29.

He made this submission in an application in the North Gauteng High Court to place the company under provisional liquidation. Afrotone bought TNA Media from Gupta-owned company Oakbay Investments in August 2017.