ANALYSIS: ANN7's South African of the Year Awards

ANN7's South African of the Year Awards 2014

Britsh singer Ella Henderson's voice welcomed viewers to ANN7's inaugural South African of the Year Awards. She, along with Nicole Sherizinger, joined a star studded South African lineup of performers for the event that was broadcast live on ANN7, DStv 405, www.ann7.com/livetv

The only major on air error at the Awards was when the presentation of blazers to all nominees, something not meant to be broadcast on television, ended up being broadcast 

The event went was overall a resounding success and it is now safe to say that these awards now set the benchmark in terms of quality when it comes to South African, and African awards shows. Many may argue that the MTV Africa Music Awards were much better produced, but then one has to remember that those awards were NOT even produced by people from Africa, rather the people that produce the MTV European Music Awards.

Hosts

Bonang Matheba and Chantal Rutter-Dros served as co hosts at the inaugural South African of the year Awards, that was broadcast live on ANN7

Bonang Matheba at #SATY2014

The hosts for the evening were ANN7's Chantal Rutter-Dros, and Bonang Matheba, who, after watching last nights awards, can do no wrong in my eyes. When it was announced Bonang would be hosting the awards, I thought the channel had made a mistake in choosing her for the event as Hulisani Ravele, who hosted the Awards' companion show, I Am South African, should have been chosen. After Bonang's  performance I knew why they opted to go with her: she is a safe bet. During the frequent technical errors, though nothing major and even when the usually perfect Chantal Rutter Dros made a mistake every now and then (the silliest was calling Men in Black 3 "Men in 3 Black," even though she was reading off a teleprompter), Bonang would be that consistent reassuring on screen presence that was basically the glue that kept everything together.

Cameras at the South African of the Year Awards occasionlly cut to crowd shots during on stage presentations. The above shot was shown several times throughout the broadcast and was one commented on by many Twitter users

Prizes
They announced the prizes for the various awards. The winner in each category would receive a Acer laptop, courtesy of Sahara Computers. Each of the five Lifetime Achievement Awards Recipients would receive R25 000, while the South African of the Year would receive R100 000. All the cash prizes were sponsored by ANN7. I think it was rather inappropriate to announce the prizes at the event.

Production Values

UK singer Ella Henderson opened the inaugural South African of the Year Awards on ANN7

The production values of the show blew everyone away. Yes there were moments when the sound experienced errors, but the overall broadcast went completely smooth when one considers the amount of errors usually seen on a live South African awards show. While watching the presenters seamlessly reading their script off the teleprompter, I struggled to believe that this was the same channel that just a year ago could barely operate a teleprompter.

Section of the stage at the SOuth African of the Year Awards during one of a few performances highlighting South African heritage.

The stage was perfect for the evening with its 4 presentation points. Nothing too extravagant like a music awards show, but not dull either. One could also see that attention was paid to detail when you consider the appropriateness of the background pictures on the major curved screen: an amazing picture of the National Stadium for the Sports Award, or the Johannesburg skyline during speeches.

Dance, Dance
One thing that stood out for me, and many tweeters as well, was the excessive dance items, which were just too long. The show could have done with less, and shorter dance items and should also have tried to have more South African and current songs.

When the first award of the evening, the Young Person of the Year Award finally took place, the channel made a very safe bet by having just Bonang and Chantal doing the introductions while the actual presenter of the awards just announced the winner. The wait until Dr Sandile Kubheka finally went up to receive the first award of the evening was just too long.

Zahara performing at the inaugural ANN7 South African of the Year Awards. She performed at the nominations announcement event as well

Fikile Mbalula, the entertainer
By far the best presenter of an award for thee evening was the presenter of the Sportsperson of the Year Award, Minister of Sports Fikile Mbalula who really worked the usually dead crowd as if he was a professional entertainer.

The wait between awards were just too long as it made the show less about the actual work of the nominees and seemingly more about the musical performances. Some performances were more appropriate than others, Lira's comes to mind as being perfect for the evening.

Host of ANN7's Between the Lines, Asanda Magaqa presented an award at #SATY2014

Top of the tweets
Though I may not have enjoyed the excessive musical performances, those performances fulfilled their role prefectly of attracting a young audience to the event. Throughout the event, #SATY2014 was the number one Twitter trend for South Africa, beating out X Factor SA that ws broadcast on
SABC1, a channel with viewership much higher than ANN7's.

When it comes to intergrating Twitter, the Awards must have done something right. There was really minimal mention of the social network, but the awards somehow managed to stay on top in the Twittersphere. How did they do it? They marketed the awards to the Twitter audience in the perfect way: on Twitter and not on television. If someone wants to Tweet about something, they would already be on Twitter, so in order to get people to tweet about the event, the channel's official handle, and many personalities, including nearly all celebrity nominees tweeted about the event.

International Superstar
Nicole Scherizinger's performances was somewhere in the middle of the show, which is the perfect place to put a hyped performance so as to keep the closing performace for someone that actually is South African. Her medley lasted over 15 minutes and included some of her hits, old and new, and some songs by other artists as well. Having singers sing more than just one song adds a certain dynamic to a television event not usually present when it is an overproduced single song. Her performance at the SATY's was by far the best one I had ever seen from her.

Nicole Scherizinger was the headline performer at the inaiugural South African of the Year Awards

South African of the Year
The main award of the evening (the one that was unnecessarily disclosed to be worth R100 000), the South African of the Year Award, went to the Public Prosecutor, Advocate Thuli Madonsela, who was loudly applauded at the announcement and subsequently made a wonderful speech on our country.

Public Protector Advocate Thuli Madonsela was awarded the South African of the Year Award at the #SATY2014 Awards hosted by ANN7

This was followed by a wonderful closing song by the South African artists and then a short goodbye from the hosts, Chantal and Bonang.

No adverts!!!!
The awards show did what so few South African awards shows, and even other live events rarely does: end on time. And it did this by doing what every awards show, and even a live event like the Idols finale, on DStv should do, and that is to completely drop adverts. It was only after watching the show for a full hour and then asking myself why I, a usual channel hopper had not checked what is on other channels yet, and then I realised that there were not any commercial breaks during the show.
However, not having commercial breaks does create a greater sense of risk because usually when a live production experiences a technical error, they get to correct these during a commercial break when viewers aren't watching. However, the total absence of commercials meant that the SATY Awards did not have that benefit, and it was a gamble that ultimately worked out well when it came to the flow of the program as commercials tend to interrupt the pace of an awards show.

Overall, it was a much better than expected awards show. Everything ran smoothly, it just felt special, the calibre of performers, who are A-Listers, and Presenters, who include current and former Members of Cabinet, gave a brand new awards show much needed credibility as it tries to establish itself as the premier national awards show.

One could really see that the channel spared no expense when it came to the awards show and that the awards gave the channel some much needed exposure. it is now up to ANN7 to properly capitlise upon that exposure.