ANALYSIS:OpenView HD launches Trial TV: The State vs Oscar Pistorius on Channel 119

So Openview HD will be having their own channel dedicated to the "Trial of the Century" The press release is below, followed by analysis:
"South Africa’s first free-to-air digital satellite platform, OpenView HD, is launching a channel dedicated to broadcasting  the  Oscar Pistorius trial live on Monday, 3 March 2014.

Trial TV: The State vs Oscar Pistorius, which will run on OpenView HD Channel 119, will offer viewers live court proceedings from 10AM-4PM.  Court proceedings will be repeated on the channel throughout the schedule.

Oscar Pistorius, also known as the blade runner, was accused of allegedly shooting and killing his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp on 14 February last year. Pistorius is due to stand trial in the Pretoria High Court on 3 March.

Says Maxwell Nonge, Managing Director of Platco Digital: “OpenView HD is pleased to be able to broadcast the Oscar Pistorius trial live on our platform. The decision to provide our viewers access to  information of public interest is in line with our commitment to afford OpenView HD viewers with as broad a range of programing as we have at  our disposal.”

Monde Twala, e.tv Head of Channels says: “There has been a lot of interest around the Oscar Pistorius case amongst our viewers, therefore, we would like to afford our viewers the opportunity to witness and follow the trial of Oscar Pistorius as it happens.”

Viewers can also tune into e.tv Prime Time and eNCA on DStv Channel 403 for more riveting coverage of the court proceedings."

ANALYSIS:
What is clear from this release is that this channel will be produced by the eTV guys (sister company of Platco, Openview HD's operator. What makes this interesting is the fact that eNCA will also be having their own coverage of proceedings as it happens, so the same team will be responsible for providing coverage on two tv channels.

This then raises the question of 'talent' that will be used for the Openview HD channel because they obviously do not have a news channel of their own. This then leads to the probability of eNCA talent having to pull double duty to appear on both channels. You will also have to start wondering whether there will be simulcasts between the channels because analysis will have to be provided on both channels and it is going to be pretty redundant to have two separate productions being produced by one production company, providing coverage of one event. What content is shared is also going to be of interest for then content that airs on eNCA, which is perceived as a premium news channel available exclusively to people willing to pay R265 or more for it (that is the cost of the DStv package that has it, DStv Compact).

This also creates the possibilty of future channels covering specific events in the future on the Openview HD platform in the future, like the elections. Now that prospect is exciting

[Further analysis of Oscar coverage will be introduced heavily within a few hours]

State of the Nation Coverage Plans for eNCA, eTV, SABC News, SABC2, CNBC Africa and ANN7

This Thursday, the 13th of February is the annual State of the Nation Address by President Jacob Zuma. This is going to be an interesting one to watch as it is an election year and also to hear which issues he will address and how to address them.

©SABC News

For the first time ever, we have more than just one general news channel that will be covering the event (along with the fininacials). Since President Zuma made a smart move by moving the event to prime time where normal South Africans can see it, the channels really went all out with their coverage.



eNCA will cover the event throughout the week as part of their regulars cheduled program. Their actual coverage starts at 4pm in Cape Town at Parliament (immediately after the Cape Town broadcasted News Day). Senior anchors Iman Rapetti (NewsNight) and Andrew Barnes (NewsDay) will anchor live from Cape Town with the likes of Nikiwe Bikitsha contributing. This is Andrew's umpteenth SONA considering that he is Cape Town based, with it being Iman's second, after last year. Before that Nikiwe was the female anchor but could not last year due to her studying (I still cannot see how those studies benefitted her career).  Jeremy Maggs usually does a review panel from Joburg at 9pm.
eTV will also broadcast the address from 7pm to 8:30pm. As such both their soaps (Rhythm City and Scandal, respectively) will broadcast from 6pm, pre empting the 6pm Sotho bulletin.
EDITORS COMMENTARY: I remember last years state of the Nation address coverage on eTV and eNCA quite well. It was Valentines Day, the same day Oscar Pistorius murdered his girlfriend. As such eNCA really wanted to gain interest from an international audience who they just recently reached through Sky in the UK and LiveStation online. They did this through providing rolling coverage of the event with great repetition anchored by Deborah Patta with input from the highly talented Karyn  Maughn. This coverage did not even mention the SONA which happened at the same time. The SONA address was covered on eTV, but because they only wanted to show it until 8:30pm and Zuma stopped talking at about 8:25, they just wrapped up, wasting the resources that were brought to Cape Town including anchors, reporters and analysts.



It goes without saying that the public broadcaster will cover the even live as well. Coverage begins at 5pm on the SABC News Channel (DStv 404), repeated at midnight. This will be a full team effort  and ends at 9pm. This also makes things interesting to see what will broadcast on SABC 3 at 6:30pm  which is usually a simulcast with the SABC News coverage at that hour and also that some talents used for the 6:30pm broadcast will be used for SONA. At 9pm a sports review broadcast, which will be pre empted at 8:30pm will be broadcast at 9pm before returning to regularly scheduled programming. This is an odd choice considering that a more appropriate Business Report with Francis Herd is also being pre empted, but wont be shown.
Of course SONA coverage will be shown on SABC 2 as well, from 6pm to 8:30pm, shifting that evening's 7de Laan to a Friday double bill. At 8:30pm we have fifteen minute bulletins in Afrikaans and then Sotho back to back.
 

ANN7 will be broadcasting the event live as well. it is not clear whether they will broadcast from location but will indeed have a few reporters there. Those likely working the even include Chantal Rutter Dros and analyst Hajra Omarjee.

The Financial Networks will also be providing live coverage.

CNBC Africa has live coverage for 2 hours from 7pm.

Summit TV is unclear at this moment.

Spoilt for choice indeed, but if you prefer the speech and no fluff and analysis, you can of course get the live and raw feed with no flashy anything or fancy editing on the Parliamentary Service (DStv 408, surprised it is not on StarSat yet). This is where you go if you want your coverage anchored by the speaker of the house and not some journalist.

Mandela Viewership: Funeral

Blow find the FTA viewrship figures for the Mandela funeral. Certain channels had round the clock coverage, while others just broadcast the actual thing.
Notice how the SABC 2 viewrship gradually increases due to their rolling coverage to a point where they totally eclipse the other channels.

Mandela Viewership: Official Memorial

Below find the viewership graph for 7am-4:30 pm on December 10th 2013, the date of Nelson Mandela's memorial. The memorial was live on SABC 2 and eTV on the FTA channls.

More Notes:
- Though slated for an 11am start, it only offically got underway at 11:58.
- The 'Óther Viewers' column represents viewers who watched either SABC 1 or 3 during the memorial, neither of which showed live coverage, but did have a reasonable amount of Mandela-themed content.
- The feed that was shown on SABC 2 was also seen on SABC News, DStv Channel 198, SABCNews.com and the SABC's youtube channel (none of whiches figures are added here).
- The feed seen on eTV was also shown on eNCA, their youtube channel, livestation.com and at certain extended periods on NDTV, none of which are added here.