Andrew Levy the new face on e.tv's Sunrise

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28 June 2013

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Andrew Levy the new face on e.tv's Sunrise

ZAlebs sits down with e.tv Sunrise sport anchor, Andrew Levy to find out what he makes a good sports anchor and his most embarrassing moment on set.

You studied Commerce at varsity which is totally different from being a sports anchor, how did you manage to gel those two elements and choose one as a career path?

I’ve always been passionate about broadcasting, I watched “Good Morning Vietnam” a long time ago and realized that’s what I want to do, I thought to myself “I want to be Robin Williams”. So when I was at Varsity I decided to join the UCT campus radio station and that’s where the journey began, I was on UCT radio my entire varsity career. However, I found myself in quite a dilemma because I wanted to still do Commerce, to have a broader understanding of politics, economics and just have a broad knowledge of how the world works but I also had this burning passion inside to be a sports anchor. I eventually studied commerce right through varsity because I felt that it was just for me to be informed about the on goings of our society because I really think that as a broadcaster it’s your duty to inform people so as to avoid talking rubbish.

How would you describe your transition from radio to television and are both these mediums of broadcasting similar?

I honestly thought both these mediums were similar but when it was time for me to stand in front of the camera and do my job I realized they were both completely and utterly two different ball games. In television you are on show all the time, and the thing about airing in the morning is that I’m in your living room, your personal space every single morning, whereas with radio all you hear is my voice and you can’t see all the other million things I’m doing behind the mic. The make-up aspect of television is also something new and interesting to me, I’m a very laid back type of guy I’m not really much of a metrosexual guy not because I don’t like looking good its just that I’m too messy so I commend all the women out there who put make up on, I don’t know how they do it. (Laughing)

Tell us about your first day on etv’s Sunrise, did the crew play any pranks on you?

I was too nervous to even realize if there were any pranks being played on me, but I was then later told that as I was walking on set to be introduced as the new sports anchor I gave Sindi Mabe an un-expected hi-five, I was so embarrassed afterwards because I thought that was very unprofessional of me. (Laughs) The team is quite a lot of fun.

What would you say makes a great sports anchor?

For me a good sports anchor is someone who can converse in the language of sports quite comfortably. It’s ok in not knowing everything but it is crucial to make that extra effort of researching more about a particular sport, anyone can tell what the score is, it’s really about the stuff that happens behind the score line. So it’s really important to create a dialogue with the fans of the sports to delve deeper into what either happened in that particular game, people love sports and they like engaging in sports conversations where you’re able to tell them something new and I think that’s the job of the etv Sunrise sports team.

Andrew is also a part of the Umuzi Photo Club which is a youth development organisation that amplifies the voice of young people by developing creative activists and social campaigns. Umuzi has been running since 2009 and works in 4 communities across Johannesburg. They've also done work in the Western Cape and the North West province.

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