ANN7 adds new weekend sports show to schedule

ANN7's marketing Twitter account (the only one of its kind in the country) today tweeted that the channel will be launching a new weekend sports show this weekend, The Beuatiful Game.

The show, which will look at Soccer news from South Africa and abroad, will be anchored by current weekend breakfast show anchor, Liezle Wilson, Tholakele Mnganga, a sports journo at PowerFM, and Lenn Yarmolenko.

The broadcast times of the show is odd though.  The morning broadcast is live at 10:30am, but it then gets repeated at 9:30pm when it will be previewing games that have aired already.

The show joins ANN7's other sports shows, the weekday GameOn! and the weekend Weekend Sports.

News On Christmas

Christmas time is a time for family and friends but the news cycle continues, no matter how slow it goes.

On Christmas 2014, CNN (DStv 401) had a mere 10 hours of live news on their schedule. When you thought it could not go any lower, it does indeed with them only having a mere 6 hours of live content on Christmas day this year (a quarter of a day), with the rest of the time filled with magazine shows, review shows and two airings of the CNN Heores awards in its entirety [Amount of hours measured using 24 hours in the US Eastern Time zone where the channel is head quartered].

Zain Asher, who has been on air this entire week worked extra hours in addition to her own and so did business anchor, Richard Quest, who did quite a few editions of CNN Newsroom. Quest, who has been on air every Christmas for the last few years (to allow those that celebrate the day to do so and to have a nice day filled with feel feel good stories) even has a Christmas tradition of his own whereby he cracks Christmas crackers on air with the behind the scenes personalities, seen below:



On eNCA, the Christmas schedule once again started an hour later, allowing the anchors to sleep in an extra hour, this year being Gareth Edwards who got to do breakfast show duty this year. Gareth had been anchoring News Night in place for Jeremy Maggs and Iman Rappetti who deserve the award for easiest schedule in news considering Gareth fills in for both of them most Fridays and now the whole festive week. Thulasizwe Simelane stood in for Cathy Mohlahlana and Joanne Josephs from 9am onward. Florence Letoaba did News Night

ANN7 had weekend Vuka Africa anchor Liezle Wilson anchoring on Christmas and, as they did last year, broadcast a live Church sermon to commemorate the day. In prime time Chante Janjies anchored, which she really did not want to do, as she tweeted. She ended after ANN7 Prime and the channel just rebroadcast her same news bulletin for the rest of the evening.

Morning Live, which was broadcast on SABC News Channel only and not SABC 2 had some live crossings to usual newsreader Ayanda Allie Paine who was capturin the festive spirit from outside the studio whilst Vaylen Kirtley held things down in the studio. The channel, once again, had the most (live) news on Christmas.

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On Christmas Eve, both eNCA and CNNi broke with tradition and chose not to cover the Pope's Christmas Eve Mass at all, even though they had in previous years. This year, the broadcast also made the jump from SABC3 to SABC2, the public broadcaster's channel featuring the most festive content. ANN7 also broadcast a large portion of the event live, but did so using a broadband connection which obviously is not even close to being as good as a high quality satellite connection as SABC2 had.

ANN7's South African of the Year 2014 Red Carpet

Title card for ANN7's SOuth African of the Year Awards 2014 Red Carpet Special

It has been an event months in the making and last night, September 6th 2014, ANN7's inaugural South African of the Year Awards took place.

The first event in the buildup to the awards show was the highlights of the prior evening's nominee's dinner, which was also attended by president Jacob Zuma. Though the programme was originally slated for a 6pm start time (shown on the DStv programming guide as such and also by various ANN7 personalities on their respective Twitter accounts on the actual day), the special aired at 5pm, meaning many who expected it to air at pm would have missed out

Liezle Wilson, Clement Manyathela and Avumile Qongqa hosted ANN7's South African of the Year Awards' red carpet special that aired 30 minutes before the start of the actual #SATY2014 Awards

The red carpet show went on air at 7pm with Buzz ANN7 anchor Liezle Wilson, Clement Manyathela, and Avumile Qongqa welcomed viewers to the Sandton Convention Centre. It is evident from the beginning that the red carpet special is not live, instead comprising of smaller segments recorded throughout the early evening with various guests, which is not necessarily bad considering the amount of interviews included in the special.
 

Miss South Africa, Rolene Strauss, talks to Clement Manyathela on the Red Carpet at ANN7's SATY 2014

The first guest on the Red Carpet Special was none other than reigning Miss South Africa, Rolene Strauss, who also appeared on the main show

As interviews were being conducted on the red cart of ANN7's South African of the Year Awards, the camera would cut to pictures of guests arriving at the Sandton Convention Centre for the Awards.

The exterior of the Sandton Convention Centre was all decked out for ANN7's South African of the Year Awards

 

9 Year old Afeefah Patel and her family speaking on the red carpet of ANN7's Inaugural South African of the Year Awards. Her parents stated they were very proud of their daughter. Afeefa said it was amazing meeting President Zuma at the prior evening's nominees dinner, a prime example of how these awards not only recognises people for their contribution to society but also motivates them to work harder.

At this point the fact that the show was not live had become a problem: people that had spoken on the red carpet before entering the actual theatre were then shown getting out of their car on the outside of the venue before entering the red carpet section

ANN7 Prime anchor, and co host for the evening, Chantal Rutter-Dros (In a David Johan Dress) along with her husband speaking to Clement on the South African of the  Year Red Carpet. Says her on stage dresses are by Black Coffee and that she feels "beautiful" in those dresses

A view of the ANN7 South African of the Year Awards Red Carpet at the Sandton Convention Centre

One thing the special lacked and could do with was to have tags for the guests they are speaking to as viewers would be unfamiliar with many of the nominees if they wanted to, say, follow them on social media or so to find out more about their work.

ANN7 Sports Editor, formerly of eNews, Edwin Kgaswe played door man for the night

Another Young South African of the Year nominee,

Young South African of the Year nominee, and subsequent winner, Dr Sandile Kubheka, speaking on the red carpet.

The first, and only ad brak for the ENTIRE EVENING took place at 7:15pm. Up to this point all nominees echoed the same sentiment of being thankful for the recognition they have received.
When asked, most guests feel as if Bonang Matheba, co host for the evening, will win Trendsetting Celebrity of the Year.

Parents of yet another Young South African of the Year nominee, pianist Kyle Shepard, on the ANN7 South African of the Year Awards Red Carpet. Kyle was unable to attend the event due to being on tour outside of the country at the time of the awards. The mother mentioned that all nominees stayed at the same hotel where international superstar Nicole Scherizinger stayed.

ANN7's midmorning/early afternoon anchor, Abigail Visage, interviewing a guest. As seen in one of the first pictures, she was not meant to be a part of the red carpet coverage, though her contributions were quite well done (though her attire might not be, uhm, event appropriate)

One thing that I did not enjoy about the red carpet was that the presenters tried to make the whole event about the performances, which, though is nice, is not the primary focus of the evening. Every guest on the red carpet was asked who they were looking forward to seeing perform on the actual event and when someone mentioned names and one name was not Nicole Scherzinger, the presenters went and reminded them that she would be performing. If the awards take place again in the future, the presenters need to focus on the actual nominees and their work and not whatever celebrtiy will be performing. the celebrity will always get another platform to showcase their talents, but not all the nominees will have that same opportunities.

The representative of Dr Imtiaz Sooliman (Nominee in the Spirit of Humanity Award category at ANN7's South African of the Year Awards) was the first person to actually speak about the work the organisation does. He mentioned Dr Sooliman was currently working in Gaza.

Representative of Lucas Sithole, a wheelchair tennis personality, and nominated in the sports person of the year category at ANN7's South African of the Year Awards

Strictly Come Dancing SA host Katlego Moboe enjoying himself on the red carpet of ANN7's South African of the Year Awards AT THE SAME TIME that his show is being broadcast on SABC3

Mafikizolo, who was nominated, and subsequently won, Trendsetting Celebrity of the Year at ANN7's South African of the Year Awards. The duo also performed in a "battle" with Mi Casa

The host of I Am South African, the main show in the SATY 2014 campaign, Hulisani Ravele. She said the awards "represent all that is South African." She feels that as a host, your duty is to be in between, facilitate conversation, teach people and learn yourself and that the journey left her inspired. She also felt that the best is yet to come. [I personally feel it was a real shame that she was completely ;eft off the actual awards ceremony considering that she has basically been the face of the show]

The presenters of the red carpet signing off. From left to right, Liezle Wilson, Clement Manyanthela and entertainment editor Avashnee Vendiar. The oddest thing about this picture is that the three presenters that signed off from the red carpet special didn't all exactly sign on, see the pic above.

And like that, the red carpet special of ANN7's inaugural South African of the Year Awards has come to an end, the presenters have said goodbye and everything, and then... another guest...

And if that was not enough, the first few interviews re aired, leaving viewers confused as the main show had to start already. Added to this was when Clement mentioned that the show will be going "live" at 7pm, despite the fact that it was 7:36pm already. Thanks editing team...

Either way, it was not a bad red carpet special, though there is growth room for the future both in quality and duration as well.
The near total lack of mention of Social Media was a welcomed refresh from the usual builup shows awards have these days plugging twitter as if they are paid to.

Main show analysis here

Ann7 Makes Adjustments to Primetime Shows, Expanding Prime to Two Hours, and dropping Headlines

The new ANN7 Prime title card. The show is hosted by Chantal Rutter Dros and now airs daily from 7pm-9pm

ANN7 recently made adjustments to the two hour block of prime time programming anchored by Chantal Rutter Dros.

These changes see ANN7 Prime, by far the best news bulletin in South African prime time, expanded to two hours now airing from 7pm-9pm Mondays to Fridays (prior to the adjustments there was a period during which Chantal didn't do Fridays) and dropping the earlier one hour show ANN7 Headlines.

Ann7 Headlines was a very generic one hour news bulletin hosted by Dros where she would just anchor inserts of the days happenings for the full hours before Prime started. Prime, in contrast to Headlines, was a one hour news program, which unlike the other channels' news programs, did not repeat the news for the second half hour. Instead it would go with the format of an in depth insert followed up by a live interview either by telephone, video feed or in studio with a newsmaker involved with the story, a specialist for more insight, or, if they can't find anyone, the journalist that filed the story. It gives viewers a greater depth to the story and the story behind the story in comparison to the news on the other channels.

The move was one that you could see coming as in the last few weeks on air talent often referred to the first hour as Prime, even though it was still Headlines and had the graphics that were used by Headlines.

The opening of ANN7 Prime now includes an introduction by all three anchors: news anchor Chantal Rutter Dros, Sports anchor Peter Stemmet and Entertainment news anchor Liezle Wilson

When the show expanded to its two hour format seen now, slight adjustments were made as well. At the start of the show once the headlines have been read (which i feel is too long as they try to highlight as much stories as possible in those first few minutes), Chantal then throws to Peter Stemmet, who does the sport headlines, followed by Liezle Wilson, who does the entertainment news headlines, both of whom now have their own segments throughout the show.

Liezle Wilson, also the host of ANN7's daily entertainment show, Buzz ANN7, is the first entertainment anchor as part of a prime time news bulletin since eTV's eArts inserts which were part of the then one hour eNews Prime Time bulletins in the very early 2000's.

The end of the new promo for ANN7's premier show, ANN7 Prime, which is hosted by Chantal Rutter Dros

ANN7 also shot an excellent on air promo for the show starring Chantal. The three on air talents of the show, Rutter Dros, Stemmet and Wilson also heavily promote the show on their respective Twitter accounts as well.

One thing the show, and the channel overall could do with, is a weather personality. The channel silently dropped the on air weather girls soon after launch, now just playing the weather with no commentary at all.

Overall, expanding the better of the two shows is a step in the right direction for the least watched of South Africa's three news channels, removing any confusion for both viewers and on air talent.

If you haven't seen ANN7 Prime, I suggest you give it a try.