ENN TV


Ethiopian News Network was an Ethiopian television channel based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The channel was launched in 2016, transmitting on Nilesat. It is the first private station based in Ethiopia to be focused on news and politics outside of the national broadcaster EBC. It was officially closed on June 29, 2018 due to false reporting and other corruption issues through affiliate companies.

Criticisms

The TV channel was also said to be troubled by sponsors distancing themselves from the media organization, including the Ethiopian Commercial Bank, Ethio telecom and the Ethiopian Insurance Corporation, which were said to have pulled out of their long-term contracts with ENN. These were followed by private institutions which were following the suit, forcing ENN to run programs with no commercials for months.
It was also said to be excluded from government press conferences and communications, notably from Foreign Affairs briefings denying it the right to broadcast the happenings of the government, according to the same sources. The administrations of Oromia and Addis Ababa were particularly unfriendly to the station, according to sources within ENN.
The company also lost some credibility when it mixed-up photos of incidents from abroad with that of Ethiopia most particularly the riots in the Oromia region. Many critics blamed it for exaggerating local happenings, in times of distress to win favors from its dwindling viewers.
However, it was taken aback of what it felt was a directed attack by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, when he singled out the company for its “inaccurate reporting” a month ago. The last nail-in-the-coffin was when it was called by the Ethiopian Broadcasting Agency for the company’s failure to broadcast the speech of the Prime Minister as millions s gathered at Meskel Square.

Programming