Derek Watts, long time broadcaster and journalist on Carte Blanche, died on Tuesday from cancer.
Watts was diagnosed in 2022 with skin cancer that spread into his lungs.
John Webb the executive producer said: ‘Having been with Carte Blanche from the beginning, Derek became synonymous with the show, and we acknowledge that it’s largely because of him that we have become who we are.
‘Derek was a consummate professional and a dyed-in-the-wool television journalist. But, more importantly, he was a profoundly decent and kind man. We will miss him’.
Watts was born in Hillbrow, Johannesburg. At the age of five, his family relocated to Bulawayo in what was then Rhodesia. He cut his journalism teeth as a writer for The Herald in Zimbabwe.
He moved to South Africa and joined the SABC.
‘When M-Net was only two years old, they were starting a new show and they asked Ruda [Landman] and me to come and present it. I thought about it for 10 seconds and crossed the floor’, he said during an interview with the Sunday Times.
Watts was a broadcaster for more than three decades on the renowned investigative programme.
Asked why he had stayed with Carte Blanche for so long, he responded, “In the media in this country, there’s no other job I’d swap it for. Because I don’t think anything could be as exciting or offer the variety that I enjoy.”
Fellow presenter, colleague and friend Bongani Bingwa described Watts as ‘one of the kindest, most generous professionals … The room disappeared when he spoke to you. Even as a colleague, he made me feel like I was Mother Teresa’.
Watts is survived by his wife, Belinda, and children Tyrone and Kirstin.