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.