Anele Mgudlwa’s Esterhuizen post: Is there really a 947 listener boycott?

· Citizen

Anele Mgudlwa’s post on André Esterhuizen set social media alight for a few days. Now, reports of an alleged listener boycott of 947 are gaining virality.

Visit h-doctor.club for more information.

Somewhere between the original post and the retelling, a heated but fairly contained online spat turned into something much bigger that has convinced some social media users that 947 is a station supposedly under siege, with a presenter supposedly in the firing line.

The trigger was Mgudlwa’s response to the news that Esterhuizen had been named Springbok captain for a test match. She commented on another user’s post, sharing details of a 2012 disciplinary finding against him, in which he was found guilty of using a racial slur against a Black coach during a schoolboy match, and said he “should be banned from playing rugby period.”

Reactions were mixed but highly reactionary; inflammatory accounts are blowing the conversation out of proportion, tagging the station and creating AI-generated imagery to accompany their posts.

Where the “boycott” story came from

Reports then emerged that listeners were turning their backs on the breakfast show that she hosts alongside Frankie du Toit, Thembekile Mrototo, and Cindy Poluta.

Several reports about the response pointed to a handful of X accounts and copy-and-paste Facebook comments calling for people to stop tuning in to 947 in favour of other regional stations.

Two main problems with treating that as a boycott.

First, many of the accounts were anonymous, with no identifiable profile, history or link to the station. There is no way of knowing whether the people behind them have ever listened to 947, let alone whether they were regulars.

Second, the volume doesn’t support the claim. When The Citizen browsed the comments on 947’s Facebook page and the responses to Mdoda’s X post on 01 October, the number of users calling for a boycott was not as large as reporting made it seem. A handful of angry replies with AI-generated imagery carrying racist undertones, however loud and insulting, does not automatically constitute a movement.

A short-lived storm

What the post did do was start a conversation that burned fast and has since faded, something that Anele has become highly skilled at doing and monetising. Talk of the match itself has largely taken over.

What remains is a kind of broken-telephone version of events that has created the belief that 947 is under pressure to reprimand or sanction Mdoda. The Citizen has reached out to 947 and its parent company Primedia for comment. It will be added once received.

Read full story at source