State of the Nation Coverage Plans for eNCA, eTV, SABC News, SABC2, CNBC Africa and ANN7

This Thursday, the 13th of February is the annual State of the Nation Address by President Jacob Zuma. This is going to be an interesting one to watch as it is an election year and also to hear which issues he will address and how to address them.

©SABC News

For the first time ever, we have more than just one general news channel that will be covering the event (along with the fininacials). Since President Zuma made a smart move by moving the event to prime time where normal South Africans can see it, the channels really went all out with their coverage.



eNCA will cover the event throughout the week as part of their regulars cheduled program. Their actual coverage starts at 4pm in Cape Town at Parliament (immediately after the Cape Town broadcasted News Day). Senior anchors Iman Rapetti (NewsNight) and Andrew Barnes (NewsDay) will anchor live from Cape Town with the likes of Nikiwe Bikitsha contributing. This is Andrew's umpteenth SONA considering that he is Cape Town based, with it being Iman's second, after last year. Before that Nikiwe was the female anchor but could not last year due to her studying (I still cannot see how those studies benefitted her career).  Jeremy Maggs usually does a review panel from Joburg at 9pm.
eTV will also broadcast the address from 7pm to 8:30pm. As such both their soaps (Rhythm City and Scandal, respectively) will broadcast from 6pm, pre empting the 6pm Sotho bulletin.
EDITORS COMMENTARY: I remember last years state of the Nation address coverage on eTV and eNCA quite well. It was Valentines Day, the same day Oscar Pistorius murdered his girlfriend. As such eNCA really wanted to gain interest from an international audience who they just recently reached through Sky in the UK and LiveStation online. They did this through providing rolling coverage of the event with great repetition anchored by Deborah Patta with input from the highly talented Karyn  Maughn. This coverage did not even mention the SONA which happened at the same time. The SONA address was covered on eTV, but because they only wanted to show it until 8:30pm and Zuma stopped talking at about 8:25, they just wrapped up, wasting the resources that were brought to Cape Town including anchors, reporters and analysts.



It goes without saying that the public broadcaster will cover the even live as well. Coverage begins at 5pm on the SABC News Channel (DStv 404), repeated at midnight. This will be a full team effort  and ends at 9pm. This also makes things interesting to see what will broadcast on SABC 3 at 6:30pm  which is usually a simulcast with the SABC News coverage at that hour and also that some talents used for the 6:30pm broadcast will be used for SONA. At 9pm a sports review broadcast, which will be pre empted at 8:30pm will be broadcast at 9pm before returning to regularly scheduled programming. This is an odd choice considering that a more appropriate Business Report with Francis Herd is also being pre empted, but wont be shown.
Of course SONA coverage will be shown on SABC 2 as well, from 6pm to 8:30pm, shifting that evening's 7de Laan to a Friday double bill. At 8:30pm we have fifteen minute bulletins in Afrikaans and then Sotho back to back.
 

ANN7 will be broadcasting the event live as well. it is not clear whether they will broadcast from location but will indeed have a few reporters there. Those likely working the even include Chantal Rutter Dros and analyst Hajra Omarjee.

The Financial Networks will also be providing live coverage.

CNBC Africa has live coverage for 2 hours from 7pm.

Summit TV is unclear at this moment.

Spoilt for choice indeed, but if you prefer the speech and no fluff and analysis, you can of course get the live and raw feed with no flashy anything or fancy editing on the Parliamentary Service (DStv 408, surprised it is not on StarSat yet). This is where you go if you want your coverage anchored by the speaker of the house and not some journalist.