"South Africa’s first free-to-air digital satellite platform, OpenView HD, is launching a channel dedicated to broadcasting the Oscar Pistorius trial live on Monday, 3 March 2014.
Trial TV: The State vs Oscar Pistorius, which will run on OpenView HD Channel 119, will offer viewers live court proceedings from 10AM-4PM. Court proceedings will be repeated on the channel throughout the schedule.
Oscar Pistorius, also known as the blade runner, was accused of allegedly shooting and killing his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp on 14 February last year. Pistorius is due to stand trial in the Pretoria High Court on 3 March.
Says Maxwell Nonge, Managing Director of Platco Digital: “OpenView HD is pleased to be able to broadcast the Oscar Pistorius trial live on our platform. The decision to provide our viewers access to information of public interest is in line with our commitment to afford OpenView HD viewers with as broad a range of programing as we have at our disposal.”
Monde Twala, e.tv Head of Channels says: “There has been a lot of interest around the Oscar Pistorius case amongst our viewers, therefore, we would like to afford our viewers the opportunity to witness and follow the trial of Oscar Pistorius as it happens.”
Viewers can also tune into e.tv Prime Time and eNCA on DStv Channel 403 for more riveting coverage of the court proceedings."
ANALYSIS:
What is clear from this release is that this channel will be produced by the eTV guys (sister company of Platco, Openview HD's operator. What makes this interesting is the fact that eNCA will also be having their own coverage of proceedings as it happens, so the same team will be responsible for providing coverage on two tv channels.
This then raises the question of 'talent' that will be used for the Openview HD channel because they obviously do not have a news channel of their own. This then leads to the probability of eNCA talent having to pull double duty to appear on both channels. You will also have to start wondering whether there will be simulcasts between the channels because analysis will have to be provided on both channels and it is going to be pretty redundant to have two separate productions being produced by one production company, providing coverage of one event. What content is shared is also going to be of interest for then content that airs on eNCA, which is perceived as a premium news channel available exclusively to people willing to pay R265 or more for it (that is the cost of the DStv package that has it, DStv Compact).
This also creates the possibilty of future channels covering specific events in the future on the Openview HD platform in the future, like the elections. Now that prospect is exciting
[Further analysis of Oscar coverage will be introduced heavily within a few hours]
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