Is South Africa Becoming Obsessed with Broadcast Trials?

On March 3rd, South Africa, and the rest of the world, tuned in to the trial of Oscar Pistorius, a trial that made history by becoming the first ever South African trial to be broadcast in its entirety on television. As time progressed, the trial got prolonged for various reasons. But, instead of all the hype for the trial fuzzing out, it seemed to just increase as South Africans became increasingly obsessed by the trial.

In the courtroom itself, 40 seats are reserved for local media, 40 for foreign media, an overflow room for others and many more crowding outside.

The proceedings of the trial are covered on so many channels, they are spoilt for choice. There is the three news channels, eNCA, SABC News and ANN7, all of which carry the proceedings live and also all of which have their own daily wrap shows. The international channels carry proceedings live as well including CNN, Sky News (which has a nightly highlights show on trial days) and BBC World News are just as obssessed with the trial. Openview HD, South Africa's first commercial free-to-air satellite platform started Trial TV: The State vs Oscar Pistorius, a special channel dedicated to the trial that was to run daily until 6pm. Problem was, demand for the trial was so high and, after a large amount of requests, the platform extended its broadcast hours to well into the evening to allow viewers who cannot see the trial during the day the opportunity to catch  up at night. 

However, the most successful channel, by far, must be The Oscar Pistorius Trial, a Carte Blanche Channel on Multichoice's DStv platform. Though the channel was expected to be a success, the degree of success it has achieved has far exceeded expectations, drawing more than 190 000 viewers during live court times during the middle of the day, easily ranking as the most watched channel among DStv's over 100 channels on the platform.

This all excludes the success seen by various websites that broadcast the trial live, many of which see traffic numbers peak when court is in session.

But now it seems as if South Africans are finally realising that this trial wont last forever and are already looking at what trials could consume their attention in the future.

The first such one is the trial of Shrien Dewani, due to start later this year. The team behind the Oscar Pistorius channel on DStv have already polled viewers to gauge interest on whether they would watch that trial as well, a staggeringly large amount said yes.

But, as it seems as if  South Africa might be in for a change in their tv diet to include some court tv, the first channel to get ahead of the curve is surprisingly the SABC's SABC News, which now runs a daily half hour recap show at 9pm on the trial of Radovan Krejcir, hosted by Dumile Mateza. What makes this move more smart is placing this show in exactly the same slot occupied by the Oscar Pistorius trial when it is on, daily at 9pm, developing a sort of culture in which at 9pm viewers are to make appointment viewing for the broadcast proceedings of a trial, no matter who the trial may be about, but they know that at that time, there will be trial tv to watch.

The next few months will be interesting to see exactly where the broadcasters go with broadcasting  trials when the Oscar Pistorius trial finally ends.

All News Channels Carry Jacob Zuma Announcing His New Cabinet

As expected, ANN7, eNCA and SABC News all carried Jacob Zuma announcing his new cabinet live from Pretoria. For many of the reporters and anchors, there was no such thing as a weekend as many of them worked both the inauguration and tonight's coverage.

I must say I am not liking Jacob Zuma developing the disgusting habit of US President Barack Obama in his inablity to start a press conference/media event on time, expecting the whole country to patiently wait until he is ready to speak. All news channels informed viewers at 6:30 pm, the scheduled start time, that things were running late (something viewers could see for themselves), but could offer no further details. Nonetheless, things started a few minutes after that.

On eNCA, Cathy Mohlahlana anchored coverage from their Hyde Park Studio along with Nickolaus Bauer live on the scene. They carried absolutely no ad breaks for the duration of their build up while Cathy hosted an in studio panel from about 6pm.

SABC News carried the event live as well, but, ironically, the state-run news channel provided the poorest coverage of the event, with Peter Ndoro promptly starting the scheduled 7pm Prime Time Bulletin that is simulcast on SABC 3. The excellent Vuyo Mvoko did do a live report from the location, but was cut short due to time constraints.

On ANN7, Between the Lines Anchor Asanda Magaqa anchored along with Senior Political correspondent Hajra Omarjee. For Asanda it has been a particularly long day, having anchored her show live this morning at 9am, and then doing the coverage this evening. Hajra did a full, in depth analysis of the new show on her Prime Time show, Political Edge with a full panel, including a call-in from DA Spokesperson Mmusi Maimane and Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula.

Black Finance Minister 
One of the bigger newsbits coming out from the new cabinet is the new Finance Minister, Nhlanhla Nene, the first black Finance Minister in South Africa. This was mentioned on both ANN7 and eNCA. On ANN7, it was brought up as a first black Finance Minister, but within a few minutes Hajra Omarjee "corrected" the discussion, stating that Trevor Manuel was the first "black" Finance Minister (in a side note, Indian Pravin Gordon also qualifies as "black" in South Africa's racial classification, so this should have been a none issue). eNCA just mentioned Nene as the first Black "African" Finance Minister, avoiding any mistatements (though this can be contested as a coloured Trevor Manuel, it could be argued, is as African as Nene).

REVIEW: All News Channels Carry Jacob Zuma's Second Inauguration

ANN7, eNCA and SABC News (simulcast on SABC 2) all carried rolling coverage of South African President, Jacob Zuma's, second inauguration. This is a review across all three  broadcasters.
Firstly, I have been watching live news coverage for many years, and this is the first time I have ever noticed something happening across all three channels: The broadcast and its quality and content totally transformed at 9am. Watching the 6am-9am coverage, I was already planning what I will be writing in the review, but then at 9am, all three news channels switched anchors, reporters, styles, and even program names. The 6am-9am slots are totally different from the 9am-1pm slots in nature. This is in contrast to previous events that had rolling coverage (elections, funerals, etc) where the broadcasters would traditionally aim for as much consistency as possible across the full event and its coverage.

The rest of the review will therefore review the events as two events:
6am-9am

Leanne Manas

On SABC News, the Morning Live team that usually does the show in the week did this special weekend edition of the show. Leanne Manas anchored the broadcast along with Ayanda-Allie Paine, who returned today from study leave. These two really put up an authentically great, feel good  broadcast, undoubtedly the most positive of all broadcasts at the time. Yes, you could argue the SABC is the "mouthpiece" of the ANC, but what made this broadcast truly exceptional was that they took the event for exactly what it was: an inauguration. As such, they were totally void of the over analysis that plagued eNCA and just enjoyed the event, broadcasting directly from the Union Buildings covering the event from all angles, including speaking to pilots that would be part of the fly over, spoke about fashion, a bit of background, speaking to everyday citizens and discussing the guests as they arrived. As they controlled the "official" feed of the event, they had the greatest degree of seamlessness between the show and the feed that was made available to all channels, which ultimately contributed to an overall great broadcast. They also aired an exceptional piece by Ayanda-Allie Paine interviewing the man of the hour himself, Jacob Zuma, over a game of chess in what I must say is the most revealing interview I have ever seen about Jacob Zuma the man.

ANN7 also provided what seems to be developing into the channels reputation these days: none stop, rolling and exceptional coverage of live political events. Today was also the first time I actually enjoyed the channels often annoying use of way too much boxes on screen at the same time: it allowed you to see as many views of the event at the same time. They had what seemed to be the perfect  balance between analysing Jacob Zuma's task ahead and the event itself, along with reports stationed seemingly everywhere around the Union Buildings.

eNCA was a total opposite of the above. Instead of enjoying, and covering the event, the channel did what is seeming to become standard for the channel: just critiquing Zuma along with one single analyst in their studio. The same type of critiquing could be kept for any other day, but they had to put it on today. Uveka Rangappa, who had taken Friday off, anchored the show from their studio, seeming to keep live crossings to a minimum in a broadcast that was really nothing special. At a later stage of the broadcast, they did put the "official" feed on the screen in the studio, but it was too small to really enjoy what was happening. They also took more ad breaks than any other channel.
Watching eNCA's coverage and comparing it to the other two channels made me feel sorry for myself. This is had this inauguration been exactly one year earlier, this channel would have been the only news channel in the country and this flimsy coverage they provided really would not have been able to give the event the coverage it desired as we were just constantly subjected to talking heads none stop while there were other things that could have been talked about instead of the things that they spoke about that, though was relevant, had nearly nothing to do with the event. This really makes me think about which events were covered like this in the past when they were the only channel available.

9am-1pm

Peter Ndoro anchored coverage from the studio

Graphics used for this event was just one of the other graphic packages used in recent months

Vuyo Mvoko anchored coverage from the union Buildings

At just before 9am Leanne Manas handed over to the next anchor on SABC News in quite a creative way, interview him first as if he were any other guess and at some point Vuyo Mvoko just doesn't stop talking and Leanne is gone (along with the graphics quietly being changed) to reflect that Morning Live was no longer on air (this was the only show that used its own brand identity on air). Prime time news reader Peter Ndoro anchored from the studio, though only for very short moments. It was overall a good broadcast, though nothing particularly spectacular and lacking the energy seen in the three hours before it. I was disappointed that their coverage ended promptly at 1pm. As a state broadcatser, one would expect them to go above and beyond to broadcast official state events, but ironically they were the first broadcaster to stop covering the event. Their near total lack of ad breaks was something to be appreciated.

At 9am Vuka Africa anchor Peter van Onselen tooka over duties on ANN7 live from the studio. He was joined by countless reporters at the Union Buildings. He had one guest in studio whom he consulted with, though unlike eNCA, was not the focus, but rather a means to fill "dead" time, which there was very little of considering how much they had to talk about the various African leaders that were arriving. Senior Political Reporter, Hajra Omarjee, once again became a sort of a second anchor live from the Union Buildings with her guests there. I really enjoyed how they allowed the actual event to be the star, having the reporters and anchors only in smll boxes, never cutting away from the official feed. Their vision mixing was exceptional between various camera angles and split screens to ensure you get to see it all, along with stock footage of the likes of Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki's inaugurations. At 1pm there a quick recap of other news before returning to the concert on the Southern lawns, usually listening to one song on stage followed by one news item, though very rarely leaving the feed from the concert. Their exceptional coverage was spoilt when they opted to go to taped programming at 1:30pm instead of staying with events.

Amazing pic from Iman's Twitter

eNCA carried the concert in between reports and ad breaks (which were plenty)

Jeremy Maggs with his often quirky in studio panel

The concert was broadcasted untouched on enca.com

eNCA improved the most from 9am. Jeremy Maggs took over in studio with Iman Rappetti with analysts Justice Malala and Chris Maroleng (who, now that I think about it, contributed very little to election coverage considering what a great journo he is). This team was really great, balancing lighthearted banter with analysis with substance. Iman also pushed the two out for an interview of famous singers like Donald in what was a rather good interview that focussed on the youth, not forgetting a joke on Jeremy Maggs' taste in music, as has become standard with the two on News Night. Overall, it was better coverage than the three hours before, thought hey still had periods of in studio coverage that was just too long, including what was a really good interview on the architecture of the Union Buildings. Their coverage also simulcast on eTV from 11am-1pm, though their actual coverage went well beyond that with a balance of the concert, a few good inserts about the likes of the flag and Nelson Mandela, and also what seems like just too many ad breaks. They also had Cathy Mohlanhlana and Gareth Edwards on the South lawns, where it was just odd seeing Cathy switching between being a reporter and then all of a sudden an ancho

eNCA Inaugaration Plans

As Jacob Zuma prepares to be inaugurated as president for his second term, eNCA is preparing to bring viewers unrivalled coverage of the event.

Their coverage starts with live crossings from the start of the broadcast day, at 6am with coverage continuing in full earnest until 1pm, along with updates thereafter.

Anchors Gareth Edwards and Cathy Mohlahlana and Gareth Edwards will be stationed at the south lawns to give viewers a feel of exactly what approximately 20 000 ordinary South Africans would be experiencing. Senior Anchor Iman Rappetti will be stationed at the recently renamed Nelson Mandela Amphitheater, where all the action takes place.

As has become the tradition recently, the event will be live streamed in its entirety at enca.com

Review: All News Channels Cover "Opening Of Parliament" Live

As expected, ANN7, eNCA and SABC News all covered the opening of Parliament live, to varying degrees.

SABC News' coverage was done from  both their Auckland Park Studios as well as their studios in Cape Town, starting with Eben Jansen's edition of Newsroom and continuing throughout the day ith the bvarious programming, though they took regular breaks to cover other news, even airing some taped programming, which I think should have been preempted today.

eNCA covered the events at parliament during what was their regular news day. During Morning News Today, Justice Malala joined Uveka Rangappa to build up to the events. The channel also had Paula Chowles providing live reports from parliament. They have provided the least amount of coverage of the event, including allowing a sport report to continue just before 4pm when Justice Mogoeng started announcing the results, breaking in just as he announced Baleka Mbete had won the election to be the new speaker of parliament. They then carried her remarks along with the proceedings on who would be the new president. After 4pm, Gareth Edwards was joined by the stellar Angelo Fick to break down the proceedings as they happened.

Undoubtedly, once again, the star of the political coverage is ANN7. In their Midrand studios, workhorse Hajra Omarjee had been on air from about 10am providing political analysis as the events unfolded until the president was elected. She was joined by the usual anchors of the various slots, though she remained on air while the rest just stayed for their usual hours. They took a new, less traditional, approach to their in studio analysis where the anchors, who included the likes of Gladys Sithole and Nzinga Quntu, had a sort of casual conversation with Hajra about the proceedings. When there wasn't anything said, she provided well done commentary not talking to much or over anyone as commentary at live events tend to be. The only problem I had with them was that while all the other channels were carried a 'raw' feed of  the proceedings at parliament, they carried the feed from the parliamentary service (which is available about 3 channels up from them), which included their graphics and poor picture quality. If they really planning on being the place to go for politics, they should get the clean feed and not seem amateurish is basically playing another tv channel on theirs, seen below.

 

All three channels carried the proceedings live on their respective online platforms, ANN7 through their channels directr live feed at their official website, SABC News on their Youtube channel, eNCA on their website and Youtube channel, though they had technical difficulties that required everyone to refresh the feed. They were also plagued with other problems, including lack of sound. That's the number one news channel in the country for you.

Coverage continued on all three channels into the night.

All News Channel Plan Coverage of First Sitting of Parliament

As the antiscipation around the first sitting of Parliament draws nearer tomorrow, all news channels have revealded their intentions to cover the event live.
All three will cover the events live from 10:30am, along with the president speaking at about 2pm.
eNCA is planning inserts and live crossings throughout the morning.
ANN7 will have senior political reporter Hajra Omarjee reporting.
SABC News will be on location as they usually are from their parliamentary studio.

As usual, if you want to see the view from parliament uninterrupted, the best place to do so would be the Parliamentary Service on DStv channel 408 (Its a disgrace that this channel is not available on all satellite plaforms in the country), though their picture quality is known not to be up to standard.

WORLD CUP COVERAGE: Presenters and Analysts Announced, Includes Mega names John Dykes, Andy Townsend, Ryan Giigs

Supersport's main soccer presenters, Robert Marawa and Neil Andrews MC'd the launch event held in Durban

Supersport earlier today, 20th May, announced their lineup for the 2014 FIFA World Cup and they really did not fail to deliver when it came to acquiring big name talents. The launch of their World Cup coverage was held in Durban at the Beverly Hills hotel in Durban.



The usuals seen usually during Supersport programming will be there: Shaun Bartlett, Andre Arendse, Neil Tovey, Ernst Middendorp, Ruud Krol, Stuart Baxter, Gavin Hunt and Doctor Khumalo.

As usual, the team from Supersport Nigeria will be there: Sammy Kuffour, Jay Jay Okocha and Sunday Olis.

John Barnes, who was Supersport's "big get" for the last World Cup held in South Africa will be there. Though he was supposed to only be used for the world cup, he has stayed on for the full four years, usually flying in for the last few stages of the UEFA Champions League.

Then there are the big names. At first I thought they will cut back on big names considering the World Cup will not be as big in Africa as the last one, considering it was hosted on African soil.
But then I arrived at the logic that because they do not have to have so many field reporters on the ground this time around, they can divert the funds used usually for reporters on big names, and big names they got.
 
Firstly, they have the FAPLTV's main presenter, John Dykes, who will hold the fort in South Africa where he, along with Neil Andrews, will anchor their live coverage of the matches. This was a very surprising considering what a big name he is in Eastern countries like Singapore where he worked at the regional version of ESPN, and I am sure he could have anchored coverage for one of the networks that side, or just taken a break as he had been on air for almost every Barclay's Premier League match build up. He is not totally unfamiliar with Supersport thoug. He does maintain a column on their official website, along with the occassional on air promo he records for Supersport.

He doesn't come alone, however. He is joined by undoubtedly the Premier League's top analyst for their programming, Andy Townsend. He will join the team that will be broadcasting on location from Brazil.

The biggest name in their coverage, without a doubt, is freshly retired Manchester United Player-Coach (and future Assistant Coach), Ryan Giggs, who is slated to join the team broadcasting from Johannesburg, South Africa. The deal to secure his services must have been concluded very recently, as he is not listed in the DStv Magazine for June that is printed a few weeks ahead of time.

Marcel Desailly

Former World Cup winner Marcel Desailly of France, and former Spanish star Gaizka Mendieta are among the big-name football personalities who will be analysing matches for SuperSport as well.

 The Maximo (Portuguese) channel headliners are Oliveira Gonçalves, former head coach of the Angolan national team, Bernardino Pedroto, winner of five national championships, and former international José Luís Vidigal.


The team broadcasting from Brazil will consist of South Africa's First Lady of Football, Carol Tshabalala, PSL and UEFA Champions League coverage presenter Robert Marawa (who has a sports centric radio show on a local station that will senselessly take a hiatus during what is a peak time for sports), PSL sideline reporter and occasional presenter, Phumlani Msibi, Suprsport Nigeria's  Sunday Oliseh and Colin Udoh along with the aforementioned Andy Townsend.

Chantal Rutter Dros No Longer Working Fridays?

It seems as if every weekend has become a long weekend for ANN7's Prime Tim anchor Chantal Rutter Dros.

I have noticed that it has literally been months since the former Carte Blanche reporter, who joined the channel to be their weekday prime time anchor, has actually been on air on the fifth day of the week.

Instead, weekend anchor Gladys Sithole or sports reporter Peter Stemmet usually sits in on the Friday editions of ANN7 Prime and ANN7 Headlines (the person in the picture is neither one of the two, by the way, but someone that has nonetheless been a substitute for a Friday when Chantal is supposed to be on air).

Whether Chantal Rutter Dros eventually returns to air on a Friday, or why she no longer anchors on a Friday is unknown at this time.

eNCA's Robyn Kriel Once Again the Reporter to watch (and follow) for news on the latest of the two explosions that rocked Kenya

eNCA's East Africa Bureau Chief Robyn Kriel providing a live update on the latest on the bombings in Kenya on NewsNight

eNCA's East Africa bureau chief, Robyn Kriel, is once again providing exceptional, on the ground coverage of the two bommings that rocked Kenya earlier today, with live updates right through the day, likely continuing well into the weekend.

eNCA is the only local news channel that has a reporter reporting live on the ground, with ANN7 and SABC News both covering the story, but using either stock footage or footage acquired from a news service.

Robyn is also providing exceptional rolling coverage on social media, as she always does. He Twitter handle is @robynkriel.

Election Coverage Review: ANN7

The youngest news channel in the country, ANN7, has really gained popularity for what has been very in depth election coverage. One could argue hat building up to the elections, they had more coverage than both eNCA and SABC News.

The channel, who has mainly previously unknown on air talent (along with quite a few people that jumped ship from the likes of eNCA), has really put on excellent coverage from the crack of dawn, when usual breakfast anchor Peter van Onselen carried the hours 6am to 10am after doing prime time anchoring just the night before. Their coverage consisted of a decent mix of broadcasting from their studios in Midrand and the IEC Election Centre. They also mainly used the graphics package associated with one of their main election programs, SA Decides



From 10-12pm, the host of their daily elections program, SA Decides, took over from him in the studio. I really liked that they had her play a pivotal role throughout their coverage. They really shouldn't drop the ball on this.

I was however disappointed in the role played by editor in chief Moegsien Williams' role in the coverage. He was just a panelist during the 12-2pm slot. Gladys Sithole, the channel's weekend prime time anchor was up next, anchoring from 2pm-4pm
Senior Anchor Chantal Rutter Dros anchored from the IEC Election Centre from 6pm to 9pm where she had an exceptional panel with her, along with senior political Hajra Omarjeee anchored from their studio. Hajra had a particularly busy day: part anchor, part analyst and part reporter. She really has been one of the bigger stars of this election.

Amazing pic from Hajra Omarjee's Twitter

At 9pm when the votes closed, they brought the too large and distracting election graphics that have been used for Election Tracker back, for the first hour or so just flashing zeros.

Desmond Tutu voting live. While he had usually been covered as a prominent politician would when they voted, this time around only ANN7 covered him voting live.

Overall, I must say that their panelists that they had on during the day weren't all that bright, though some were quite good and they had too few of them on to the point that they had been on air for quite a few hours and after a while one can notice that they have screen fatigue. But they more than made up for this on their live shots and inserts(even though some were done using internet connections, which I am not too fond of), including showing all of the bigger politicans voting live. They were also the only channel to show Desmond Tutu voting live as the others were showing a largely uneventful news briefing from the IEC Centre. They had exceptional shots of the voting lines from their chopper and reallyu gave you a on the ground feel of the elections. At the end of the night, they had a sort of highlights package of the days events that was well produced considering the amount of content that had to be editied in that short period of time. It is really hard to think that the same channel that was so horrendous just a few months ago could produce election coverage of the calibre that they did.

They were also able to get guests of quite a high caliber on the channel, including Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe and even Police Commisioner Riah Phiyega to give an update of if there had been any incidents thus far. Her interview was quite a while.

Watching their coverage of the build up to and post elections has really made me question whether Ann7 might just be the place to go for politics in the South African media. They have gained great momentum during the elections coverage, it is now up to them to build on it. Them building on it is going to be a news junkies dream to follow.