Special Election Programming as eNCA, SABC and ANN7 Ramps Up Coverage with May 7th Election Date Nears

As the May 7th Election draws nearer, South Africa's three news channels are all running special coverage building up to the event.

(c) eNCA

eNCA, the most watched news channel in the country, has a special series of election debates running Wednesday evenings, the last of which was solely on the province of Gauteng, the first of which included the likes of Helen Zille.

 They also running special election coverage in their standard news bulletins,  along with an increasing amount of interviews with analysts approaching the elections from different perspectives, tending to focus on mining.
They also have short inserts where political heavyweights answer questions set by the youth in a set time frame.

The other news channels seem to be going all out as well.

You could argue that the channel with the most election coverage thus far is ANN7.

Here, Moegsien Williams, Editor in Chief of ANN7 is seen along with the team of their daily two hour show, SA Decides. Coutesy: ann7.com

They have dedicated hours upon hours of their schedule to the elections and, when one looks at the substance of their coverage, you could argue that they have invested a great deal of resources into this election, I would argue more than any channel.
They have their daily election program, SA Decides from 5pm to 7pm where they catch up with fifty journalists spread around the country covering the elections solely.

Courtesy: ann7.com

In addition to this, they conducted a never before seen in South African history poll on election trends. Every Thursday at 8pm they catch up with the latest trends in their Election Tracker program, that is repeated several times over the weekend, along with new editions being broadcast on Saturday and Sunday. The Thursday edition is anchored by chief anchor Chantel Rutter Dros, along with editor in chief, Moegsien Williams and a really exceptional panel, seen above.
 One of the stars of their election coverage, if not the biggest, has to be Hajra Omarjee. She anchors the weekly show Political Edge on Sundays at 8pm. It was initally a half an hour show, but since it tends to always run over time (one week over an hour overtime) it has since been extended to an hour. She has really developed in her abilities to act as a moderator of debate, often calling guests out on their claims and sticking to an issue until it is answered to a satisfactory level.
There have also been special editions of that show aired throughout the week.

The SABC has also had special election coverage on their SABC News channel.
They have the Democracy20 program that airs right in the middle of their flagship 6pm newscast from 6:30pm to 7pm (simulcast on free-to-air channel SABC3) that looks at how the country has developed since 1994.
They have an Election Round Up program daily at 10 pm that looks at the days to election news (this program replaces reruns of news bulletins that ran earlier in the evening on other SABC channels).

They have also had election debates that airs at 6pm on Sunday (simulcast on SABC1 during the slot held by well done news show Sunday World).

With so many options you spoilt for choice when it comes to election programming and deciding wh to vote for. I must say I am impressed by the heavyweights that have came out to appear on these programs, often multiple times and on channels that do not have high viewerships.