Faced with a difficult economic climate, the pan-African 24-hour news channel Africanews, launched in 2016, is preparing a reorganization that will have "no impact on its programming" but could affect employment, a spokesperson for its parent company Euronews told AFP on Wednesday.
"In view of the complex situation in the international channel market in general, and in particular in the pan-African market, the Euronews group is actively working on implementing a new model for its Africanews channel, in order to provide it with the best conditions for increasing its reach," the spokesperson said in a statement.
The group's management is actively working to implement a solution that will guarantee the channel's long-term development and sustainability,
" Euronews said, ruling out any closure.
Jeune Afrique reported last week that the channel, based in Pointe-Noire, Congo-Brazzaville, was set to close at the end of February. Euronews had planned to sell the channel to the Madagascan group Sipromad, but the deal fell through amid a dispute over contractual obligations, a source close to the matter told AFP.
According to Jeune Afrique, the failure of the transaction is linked to a disagreement with Congo-Brazzaville. The Euronews spokesperson, however, insists that "there is a fairly calm dialogue with the Congolese authorities to try to find a solution."
Euronews describes Africanews as a "leading news source on the African continent" that provides "24-hour news coverage in English and French, making Africanews the first pan-African multilingual news media outlet." Available in 34 countries and nearly 10 million households, the channel employs 62 people in Pointe-Noire (half of whom are journalists) as well as correspondents across the continent.
The group's management will continue, as it has done until now, to keep Africanews employees informed of future developments related to the channel's future and to give them a voice on this subject,
" according to the spokesperson's statement. Euronews is a multilingual news channel based in Lyon and launched in 1993 by some 20 European television stations. It is now majority-owned by Egyptian magnate Naguib Sawiris. The American news channel NBC News (Comcast/NBC Universal group) also acquired a stake in the company in 2017.
Source: AFP