Mandela Death TV Viewership

Here we have the Free-To-Air Viewership of the news of the passing of former statesman Nelson Mandela. The viewership figures are broken down quarter by quarter from the moment the news broke in the 11 o'clock hour of the 5th of December.

Courtesy of SAARF

As seen at the start of the coverage, eTV was ahead of the TOTAL COMBINED viewership figures of the SABC. This is attributed to a very strong movie lead-in the channel had. This is seen in the strong drop off that occured after that.

Viewership at the SABC started at a combined share of below 30%, but eventually peaked in the midnight hours at slightly above 60, more than double its share at the start.

From the above, we can also see SABC3 is clearly the least watched channel. However, it should be noted that at some points viewership at eTV dipped even below this, showing that eTV doesn't seem to be the place to be for breaking news or things of National Importance, the country still trusts the SABC, knowing clearly it is the mouthpiece of the SABC.

The slight marks you can see on the graph indicate 2am Saturday Morning, 2 am Sunday Morning, and the point at which SABC1 decided to drop off from the SABC News feed to show soccer, a move that may seem to be controversial, but definitely worked out considering the high viewership the soccer received as people likely tuned out of being fatigued by Mandela coverage and now finally having choice viewing after more than 24 hrs of rolling news coverage across all channels.

It would be nice to receive the news channels' ratings so that we can see whether eNCA viewership has affected the viewership seen at eTV because these numbers are alarmingly low considering the scope of their coverage.

News on Christmas (review)

I always find news on Christmas interesting because on the one hand everyone deserves the holiday off, yet the show 'must go on.'

On SABC News, they had regular hosts for the full day, with just 1 anchor on shows that usually have two. Some shows were also shortened and replaced by dated documentary series for the festive seasnon.

Over on eNews, star Field Reporter Cathy Mohlanhlana anchored Morning News Today, her first ever anchoring job, which apparently went well if one goes with what is being said on Twitter. Gareth Edwards anchored his slot solo until 12pm (A Big Debate Re Air filled the last hour of his shift). Last year, rising star and super work horse Eleni Giokos (who has already left eNCA for Bloomberg) did both slots, from 6am until 1pm. Andrew Barnes did News Day (which doesn't simulcast on eTV on holidays). Up next was Duduzile Ramele, who gets this years workhorse award, anchoring Nikiwe Bikitsha's slot at 4pm and then News Night's slot from 6 pm through 8 pm. Again, the final hour of NewsNight which usually airs through the 8pm hour was replaced by the Big Debate. I have watched News Night every Christmas since what was then known as the eNews Channel launched back in 2008, and this was the first year there was absolutely no mention of the NewsNight name this evening or use of the NewsNight set (they just remained on the 4pm set). Last year was anchored by what was a very chirpy Iman Rapetti, years former one of the other anchors, usually junior, anchored. Robyn Adams again did eNews Prime Time, which you can see she didn't want to be there. She really no longer comes across as professional to me as she just always seems so miserable.

ANN7 (which I admittedly don't watch as much as I watch the others because I just can't get a firm enough grasp on their schedule) was the first news organisation on tv to break the news of cricket player Jacque Kallis' retirement, a first for the network, and I must say for Christmas coverage they did it quite well with call-in interviews and the likes. They also had longer form documentaries airing.

SuperSport Blitz was quite dry. They initially just did build up to Boxing day soccer and cricket coverage, much later (literally hours after ANN7 broke the news) inserting news on Kallis' retirement, along with year end reviews. Sky Sports News, which last year had some not too long form docs last year was live throughout the day, providing in depth build up to Boxing Day Sports, though they had a more relaxed feel to it than usual.

Mandela Coverage Pictures: ANN7

Onscreen graphics can be claustrophobic seeing that it comes from all angles.

An example of what is now classic ANN7 misfires. (Courtesy of eNCA leader Patrick Conroy)

Interviews on the life of Madiba

Alterations made to their chopper

Their control room covering the memorial. As this is seen on tv, you can put on their channel and see all channels.

Visuals courtesy various ANN7 talent including anchors and producers.

Mandela Coverage Pictures: SABC News

Leanne Manas on location. This was a strange setup because the most senior Morning Live anchor did on location shots while the new news anchor anchored from studio.

Ayanda Allie-Paine and Kirk Franklin, who sang at the memorial.

Chriselda Lewis in action

In studio guests.

Just a few of the crew and equipment that were part of a well produced memorial and funeral pool feed.

Leanne Manas and Christiane Amanpour (of CNN) on the day of the memorial

Ayanda Allie Paine and Danny Jordaan discussing Madiba and sport.

Peter Ndoro and Phumzile Lambo Nquca  in studio discussing the life of Madiba. Notice that all coverage was done from one studio and not the bigger, better, newer one used for their flagship English broadcast.

The SABC team covering the memorial

Chriselda Lewis in Action

SABC Logos in mourning (Courtesy of Thinus Ferreier)

Though they often struggle, these guys really pushed it. An effort well done across four channels, sometimes inidvidual feeds, sometimes simulcasts, and also the pool feed
Pictures courtesy the various twitter feeds of the featured newscasters, names all listed

Mandela Funeral Coverage in Pictures: eNCA

The eNCA team that worked the Memorial waiting for their bus out of FNB Stadium

More of the team waiting in the rain

eNCA was the only channel to carry the Cape Town Memorial first intermittently then permanently later in the evening. Here, Shado Twala, MC of the event

Throughout the week, eNCA experimented with different anchor pairings.Here, Uveka Rangappa and Iman Rappetti covers the public viewing of the body in state at the Union Buildings.

The eNCA crew on their way to the Eastern Cape to cover the funeral. Anchors there were Dan Moyane and Nikiwe Bikitsha

Gareth Edwards returned from medical leave to cover this event. Here he is seen with Duduzile Ramela, who has a co anchor for the first time ever.

eNCA weather report for the memorial at FNB Stadium.

Iman Rappetti with a cameraman in the rain. As the event was produced for the pool by the SABC, this is likely a SABC camera man.

The eNCA control room worked extra hard to pull it all together.

Traffic on the eNCA website (enca.com) spiked with interest in the story.

Newsnight duo Iman Rappetti and Jeremy Maggs playing around before the memorial.

The crew that produced the funeral coverage, anchored by Joanne Josephs wearing black, in front

Newsnight from the special set with Patrick Conroy.

Scenes outside Mandela's house

The Morning News Today team of Dan Moyane and Uveka Rangappa were the first to make use of the set seen here the day after Mandela died at 11:58.

Iman Rappetti smiling with her media accreditation.

eNCA Title Card used for most of the week.

Morning News Today Team

Field producer working

View of the marquee in the distance where the funeral service was held

Jeremy Maggs and Nikiwe Bikitsha were the anchors for the memorial service

Pictures courtesy of the twitter feeds of various eNCA staff: Nikiwe Bikitsha, Dan Moyane, Patrick Conroy, Iman Rappetti, Lester Kiewett and Karyn Moughn

Mandela Funeral Coverage

Just a rundown of what today's funeral coverage was like:
With the travesty of the memorial behind us, very few international broadcasters made a big deal of Mandela's funeral.
CNN didn't have any big names in the country. They didn't even carry the proceedings as in depth as the memorial, instead opting for for analysis. The coverage wasn't simulcast between their two channels either.
BBC World News and Sky News carried it live.
Al Jazeera covered it more in depth than they did with the memorial.
NDTV, who carried a clearly internet quality feed of eNCA with the memorial had absoultely nothing on it this time around.
CCTV News had quite a decent amount of coverage considering their nature.
RT didn't seem to cover it at all.

Now for the fun: The Local Broadcasters:
SABC simulcasted the FULL service across all their channels (SABC 1, SABC 2, SABC 3, SABC News) with a sign language interpreter onscreen. (They also had a more hand-in-glove relationship with the pool feed as they produced it.) I was surprised to see Mahindra being the one to pick things up on the tail end of the service and not someone that has been more intergral in their coverage. The SABC also had their commendable programs like SABC 1 Live (Hosted by Supersport Presenter Robert Marawa who called SABC 1 his 'spiritual home' which I am sure does not create a desirable response from the guys at Supersport, and Idols Judge Unathi). They also had SABC 3 Live, which at certain points in the week were presented by Gareth Cliff and also the former Morning Live presenter. Both shows originated out of the SABC Sports studio that had been customised for the occasion.

On eNCA, they constantly made it quite clear where they were broadcasting to: Our viewers on eNCA, on eTV, watching us on the Sky platform, on Sky News Australia (which I think they were proud of, this coverage lasted until 1 pm when it was quietly dropped from the list of greeted viewers), and online (interestingly, not naming the online platforms, which comprised of Youtube, enca.com and Livestation).
I was so surprised to see it was Joanne Josephs that anchored their coverage from the studio along with Justice Malala as the analyst. This is surprising considering that they opted to not use any 'senior anchors' for the role, though Iman Rappetti and Jeremy Maggs did special editions of Newsnight both Saturday and Sunday night (14 and 15 December, respectively). The most notable senior anchor missing from their coverage is Andrew Barnes that actually co anchored with Joanne Saturday morning, but was absent Sunday. Joanne worked from dawn at 6 am until 1pm, when Uveka Rangappa relieved her. In the Eastern Cape eNCA had Nikiwe Bikitsha and Dan Moyane, who though may not have been the most fun duo for regular things as I don't think they very exciting, they were extremely well presented and had a great deal of depth in their coverage. Another anchor, Gareth Edwards, who returned from m a long period of medical leave, ddi voice over inserts afterward.

ANN7 seemed to have carried the pool feed throughout, nothing exciting there.

CNBC Africa covered the event live from their studios, which they did not do for the memorial. I must say that while their effort is appreciated, it was not well done as their graphics were still presented in a way as if it was a business show: too eye catching, and a big gap below for tickers that were not there.

The Parliamentary service has started airing parliamentary sessions of when Mandela was president. I have reached out to them to ask if they have a specific schedule, but as their website states they will be away until the fourteenth of January.

The DStv Mandela tribute channel carried the SABC feed once more.

The AFP made the pool feed available to the public from their website.

Overall, I'm sad we will never see this level of effort from local stations ever again.

Memorial Day Coverage

Though the actual memorial was slated to start at 11:00, it only started at 11:58, nearly an hour later with the national anthem, which seemed to have gone pair shaped at the Afrikaans part.

Natalie Allen anchored on CNN from the 9am hour (After Newsroom London). She then handed over to the trio of Anderson Cooper (CNNUS), Christiane Amanpour (CNNI) and Robin Curnow (CNN Correspondent) who covered the event for CNN US, simulcast on CNNI, our feed. What was interesting was the fact that it is just being billed as a special edition of Early Start, so at intervals John Berman in New York is covering 'other news.' What is more interesting is the fact that when that happens, CNNI quetly restores its own feed, with own graphics, anchored by Isha Sesay and Errol Barnnet outside the stadium, then silently slip back to the US feed.

On SABC Leanne Manas is co anchoring with Peter Ndoro. Surprisingly, the coverage is only on SABC News and SABC2, and not the other 2. Their coverage is also being shown on DStv's special Madiba channel 199 in an ugly aspect ratio. Over the last few days, on the DStv forum, many people were complaining of it not being shown on one of their HD channels, which is really tasteless as their is absolutely no live sport on any of the 6 HD sports channels.

On eNCA, whose coverage has been on eTV all day, we are anchored by Jeremy Maggs and Nikiwe Bikitsha anchored from their media suite (the pair used to be the NewsNight duo before Nikiwe decided to study further), with Cathy Mothlathana and Chris Maroleng from the balchony and Iman Rappetti from outside the stadium. They also have a sign language interpreter on their eTV feed. According to Patrick Conroy (Head of news) they had been planning for this since midnight last night.
(AS I TYPE: The Reuters feed just cut out at 12:32, with ALL channels forced to scramble their own cameras)

ANN7 has their primetime anchor covering from the studio, nothing special.

CNBC has coverage from their studio as well.

Nothing from BDTV, RT.

NDTV is carrying eNCA's feed, though it is obviously taken from one of their online streams (LiveStation, YoutTube, enca.com), as seen in their quality.

Al Jazeera is covering it, but only through discussion, not carrying the service live

Coverage Updates

Coverage has slowly decreased as the time passed by.

eTV has gone back to their near regular schedule (with the exception of Friday's Rhythm City and Scandal airing in their standard timeslots, but on a Sunday). Andrew Barnes anchored eNews Prime Time.

SABC 1 went back to a near standard schedule. What is curious here is that from 17:30 to 19:30, they produced their own memorial coverage, anchored by Robert Marawa and Unathi, both presenters on other channels (SuperSport and Idols, respectively). Their coverage is less newsy than the continues SABC News feed on SABC 2.

SABC 3 has long gone back to their regular schedule.

Channels have returned to airing commercials, something that was suspended on Friday, though they retain their black logos.

Sport in A Time of Mourning

Sport has always been close to Nelson Mandela's heart. It is therefore poetic that the first big national event after his death be a sporting one.

This is the Telkom Knock Out final between Platinum Stars and Orlando Pirates.

It is going to be interesting to see how this is handled as no news organisation is likely going to leave their coverage to keep viewers up to date, or are they?

Everyone in the stadium is holding sports related quotes from Nelson Mandela.

Mandela Coverage: ANN7

South Africa's third news broadcaster also (tried) to cover the event.

They really were couragous, going live overnight from Thursday. As it is literally impossible to determine whether their broadcasts are live or not, they put a 'live' tag right through the night on Thursday.

They were the only broadcaster to solely make use of a single anchor format throughout their coverage.

They also had a live block on screen constantly showing the scenes outside of Mandela's home.

They had quite a few on location reporters and a few in studio guests, the most prestigious probably being Minister Naledi Pandor.

Mandela Coverage: SABC News

Their coverage was what I really looked forward to. This is because, theirs was that of the state itself, was to be simulcast on four channels (SABC 1, SABC 2, SABC 3, SABC News) and, according to leaked reports of what they planned ahead of time, to be live for at least 48 hours straight without a break. High expectations indeed.

Their coverage started at the press conference at which President Zuma announced the sad news of the death of Nelson Mandela. They were the only 'official' broadcaster of the event, and as such, everyone else had to pick up their feed with their graphics and proud mic stand, which I felt was done in bad taste as a way for them to get free exposure on competing platforms.

Nonetheless, they went through then night, with two professionally conducted yet emotional anchors, Natasha Thorpe struggling more. They went through the night and did the rest of their coverage from the Morning Live set, which is strange as they opted to not even touch the main, newer set used for their flagship nightly broadcast. Within a few hours the broadcast was losing steam and they decided to add an SMS strap for viewers, which can or cannot work depending on the context of the event.

In the morning Ayanda Allie-Paine, the Morning Live News Anchor, picked things up with LeAnne Mannas on location. They continued with their pair-set up, with both anchors dressed in black always.

It was really nice to see how they allowed almost all of their anchors air time and really mixed things up. Throughout the day I was curious to see whether Mahindra (who had been banished to late nights on SABC News) would feature, which he eventually did. Their coverage also consisted of many live crossings, which were nice as apposed to in studio analysis done by the competition (Analogy: They were discussing a soccer game while it was still being played).

I truly admire the way they generally made use of anchors much younger and fresher than those seen on the competition as well.

By Saturday, the channels were split again: documentaries on SABC 1, the main news coverage on SABC 2 and SABC News and a more lifestylish approach on SABC 3. Slowly standard programming has returned, the first being a National First Division match on SABC1 and later standard programming from 6pm on SABC 3.

However, their coverage isn't without its areas that could have been improved upon.

I do feel that they should not have simulcasted their coverage and should instead have opted for coverage in different languages on different channels.

Also, on Friday night, they just started repeating the full days coverage that started at 6 am even with the mornings time onscreen on all channels, which is rather silly.

Mandela News Coverage: eNews/eNCA

When I look at the coverage provided by this news organisation, I cannot decide on whether it is a hit or a miss.
This is because, yes, they provide exceptional coverage on Mandela's death, but when they go into documentary mode, they do that for way too long, forgetting to keep the people informed.

Their coverage has been nonstop on both eNCA and eTV (along with Livestation outside of SA and free on their official website and Youtube) with only a promo thrown in now and then.

Since the unfortunate news broke, Sally Burdett coverd late Thursday Night and also the overnight hours. According to Iman Rappeti's Twitter account, she was live at 3am. She along with Jeremy covered through thee standard breakfast hours. The usual breakfast team of Dan Moyane and Uveka Rangappa covered 10am-3pm, followed by Joanne Jospeh that spent the next three hours solo, before handing back over to Jeremy Maggs and Iman Rappetti who did double duty on Friday.

I was quite surprised that by 11:58 Friday morning, eNCA had a special set constructed and did their coverage from there. Their graphics also changed to have more Earthy colours at some point in the morning.

Special Note: I was so surprised to see them show Debora Patta in one of their inserts (considering the manner in which she left) and was quite interesting to see her being billed as an 'Investigative Journalist' and not Former Head of eNews or Anchor in Chielf or any special title that she had whilst with them.

Though their coverage simulcasted on eTV once more overnight, I was quite surprised that they did not continue live coverage, rather opting for documentaries.

Coverage continued on Saturday, where Joanne Josephs did her usual hours followed by Duduzile Ramele. Iman Rappetti picked up at the usual hours of NewsNight.

Overall, not too bad from them though I expected a bit more