TV station takes ‘The Morning Show’ off air due to Covid-19
Presenters of the popular e.tv’s breakfast show Tumelo Mothotoane, William Lehong and Clement Manyathela are among 21 employees who have lost their jobs due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
This follows the decision to yank off air their show, The Morning Show, which airs between 6am and 8am, at the beginning of lockdown and Cheeky Media, the company that produces the show, terminating their contracts on March 26.
News that the show has been canned came to the fore when Cheeky Media sent a letter of termination to staff via WhatsApp recently.
The letter, seen by Sunday World, reads in part: “e.tv pulled The Morning Show off the air due to Covid-19 government regulations. At this stage, the entire nation is unsure of the duration of this pandemic and Cheeky Media is no exception.
“As a company, we are facing extremely trying times financially, with many of key clients having cancelled campaigns and cutting down on spend [sic] as they too are unsure of what the next couple of months [at least] will entail. Please note that based on the feedback received from e.tv today, [March 26], Cheeky Media will with immediate effect, suspend all business activities until further notice.
“As of today, Cheeky Media will specifically terminate all permanent and fixed-term contracts, as well as services rendered by independent contractors,” reads the letter.
Marlon Davids, e.tv managing director, said the channel had to comply with the nationwide lockdown regulations and cancel the show.
“We complied with the national lockdown requirements, and therefore all external production companies were required to shut down during this period,” said Davids.
e.tv is currently airing kids programming and a selection of movies as a replacement to the show.
The programme was the second-biggest television breakfast show in the country at the time of termination.
Davids was unable to confirm if the show would return to the channel.
“We await further notification from government about the way forward in relaxing some of the Covid-19 restrictions per industry.”
Former staff members, who did not want to be named for fear of reprisal, said they were surprised when they received the termination letters because they did not have contracts.
One employee said a meeting was scheduled to give employees permits in order to shoot during the lockdown period only to be told later that they no longer had jobs.
“We were called to a meeting at around 10.30. And that’s when we were told the news about the show being pulled off air and contracts being terminated.
“The letter was then sent later to everyone in the group, to make things official, I guess,” said the employee. Another source said after receiving the letter, they were not paid their full salaries in March.
“I don’t know what to do really,” said the source.
Cheeky Media managing director Yusuf Stevens confirmed the termination of the contracts and said that employees should apply for UIF to be paid.
