The inaugural Mennell Media Exchange, stylised #MMX14, was a resounding success despite being mainly put together by volunteers.

The conference, which was held over the 25th and 26th of July was held at The Forum in  Bryanston, Johannesburg.

The conference boasted a star studded and influential lineup of diverse speakers and presenters including comedian Loyiso Gola, online radiostation owner Gareth Cliff, eNCA Group News Editor Ben Said and the SABC's Digital News Editor, Izak Minnaar, among others.

Various eNCA personalities, including MD Patrick Conroy, East Africa bureau chief, Robyn Kriel, and Gareth Edwards all live tweeted (and retweeted) during the event.

The "Serious About Satire" session was headed up by the team behind eNCA's Late Night News with Loyiso Gola. Also speaking was Nick Dawes, who is the editor of The Mail and Guardian newspaper, who felt that he could've handled a certain controversial cartoon differently. Loyiso Gola stated that being black in South Africa makes it easier for you if you in the satire business, "The ANC feels we're with them because we're black, they don't feel Zapiro is with them." Chester Missing himself said "It gets on my moer when the media assume most politicians don't get the satirical point. Most of them play with me just fine thank you.."

The various challenges, especially from governments, faced by journalists in Africa was also a hot topic at the conference. News of the arrest of a Swazi journalist earlier was heavily sighed upon at the event.

The lively panel on African journalism also debated who 'counts' as African, who can tell Africa's stories, and for whom. Allister Sparks said a big problem faced by African news coverage is that it is just too dull.

David L. Smith, a journo who covers Africa also and was on the panel, also brought up some interesting points. These included that the SABC should be rivaling international news organisations like the BBC but doesn't due to their lack of political will, even though they have the talent to be much greater than they currently are. He also questioned why African radio stations are not global leaders even though radio is king on the continent when it comes to communications mediums.

Justine Limpitlaw from Wits University said that the one thing that helped to protect African journalists for a long time was that African governments weren't tech savvy enough to clamp down on journalists for a long while, which, unfortunately, is a decreasing trend and she called the increasing digital clampdowns from these governments "worrying,"

eNCA has invested more than R50 million in their eNCA Africa division, of which they have seen little return. The division uses and trains locals from the various African countries, including Nigeria, Kenya, Zambia and Zimbabwe. On covering news from the continent, Robyn Kriel stated "To tell a good African story well, you've got to be on the ground or have networks on the ground, who you trust. There is no 'African story'. There are individual countries with their own stories."

An interesting topic that did arise at the conference was the commercial interests of news organisations. The amount of questions asked around the topic makes Patrick Conroy feel as if the business models and commercial interests of news organisations are "not fully understood" by people on the outside. He tweeted later in the day, " If you don't like the media's commercial model why not try and launch your own company without them. Let me know how it turns out." These statements are particularly powerful in a time when CNN, the "World News Leader" is facing harsh criticsim in the US for going into more "unscripted" shows that are more profitable for them.

These are just a few highlights if the overall event that is to become an annual event going forward. Overall, it was a great platform to highlight the universal issues facing journalists on the continent.

Chris Maroleng Signs Off From Africa 360

 "Africa 360. See Africa, like you have never seen it before." These words, made famous by eNCA Africa editor and host of Africa 360 on eNCA, Chris Maroleng, were said for the last time this past Saturday as Maroleng signed off from the program for the last time as he would be leaving eNCA.

Maroleng, who joined the then eNews Channel was tasked with expanding the organisation's African news division, eventually forming what is today known as eNCA Africa.

When not presenting Africa 360, be it from the studio or on location around the continent, Maroleng also presented on air analysis during the various live events covered by the channel.

Chris Maroleng often served as an analyst during eNCA's live event coverage. Here he is seen with Iman Rappetti and Justice Malala during President Jacob Zuma's second inauguration

During his final edition as the host of Africa 360, he was joined by the show's new host, Kwangu Liwewe, who has been a part of the show in a different capacity before this. The two looked back at Chris' tenure on the show and discussed the highlights of news events covered on the show. His full final show was uploaded on eNCA's Youtube account:

Maroleng is probably most famously known for his interview on Africa 360 on 7th April 2010 when, whilst interviewing AWB Secretary Leader Andre Visage, the two got into a near physical altercation which gave birth to the "don't touch me on my studio" line that Chris, and eventually Andre, used on the show. (It still remains odd why they would even choose to air the piece in the length in which it was aired as it could have been edited due to it being a recorded show). The show therefore ended with a tribute to this event as they looked back at Maroleng's highlights on the show.

Maroleng's greatest legacy at eNCA, however, will by far be his massive contribution to eNews Africa, now known as eNCA Africa. What once started off as just the weekly Africa 360 show has now grown into multiple daily African news bulletins which airs across the eTV group of channels including 30 minute editions that air on eTV Africa and also eAfrica+, as well as the three hour daily African news bulletin that airs on eNCA in late prime time on the feed of the channel outside South Africa, and in the overnight hours in South Africa. He has also led the establishment of both a West African bureau for the organisation in Nigeria, and also an East African bureau headed by Robyn Kriel, who has produced excellent inserts and coverage like the West Gate Mall incident last year.

Whoever takes over from Maroleng, who leaves broadcasting for the corporate world at MTN, sure has big shoes to fill and will need to capitilise on the momentum eNCA Africa currently has.

Supersport Planning Wall to Wall coverage of the 2014 Commonwealth Games Across Multiple Channels

As the 23rd July start date for the 2014 Glasgow Common Wealth Games nears, Supersport has released details on their coverage plans.

The broadcaster plans on having three 24 hour channels dedicated to the Games: Supersport 4, Supersport 5 and Supersport 7, all simulcast in HD. Supersport 9 will also be used as an overflow channel when there are many events happening concurrently.

The games will also be streamed live at Supersport.com. This does, however, create the possibilty that South Africans might be locked out of the Games' free Youtube channel that will stream all the Games live because back at the 2012 Olympics, the whole continent and many other countries were allowed to watch those Games online, but because Supersport held the online rights, South Africans were restricted from watching the live free streams.

Supersport 4, which is available on DStv Compact, Extra and Mobile as well, will be the home of watersports and athletics, the same as it was back at the 2012 Olympic Games. Having coverage of the Commonwealth Games on this channel is greatly welcomed as the channel usually just reruns old PSL matches and magazine shows leading up to the new soccer season.

Supersport 5 will be the broadcaster's main channel. It will air both the opening and closing ceremonies live. It is to air mainly gymnastics and watersports when SS4 has athletics.

Supersport 7 is to be the home of the African teams, but will also house the entire Rugby Sevens tournament as well.

Supersport 9, the only of the channels not available in HD, will not be providing 24 hour coverage, but will providea great deal of live programmiong throughout the day, focussing on sports like weightlifting. It is also available on DStv Compact and Extra as well.

Supersport Select, which is available on all DStv packages excluding EasyView, will air two daily one hour highlights blocks, one of the day's events in general and one dedicated to African nations participation on that day. The time it airs varies from day to day due to the channel having to carry other live sporting events as well.

Rolling coverage will be provided on Supersport Blitz and highlights packages will be added to DStv Catchup regularly.

Supersport's on the ground team in Glasgow will consist of 14 members headed up by Kenya's James Wokabi and South Africa's Crystal Arnold (who just finished an excellent run as part of the broadcasters Soccer World Cup Coverage). South African swimming legend Ryk Neethling, who was part of Supersport's 2012 Olympic Games will provide analysis from Glasgow this time as well.

News Channel Audience Share for June 2014

 

 Thanks to eNCA's Patrick Conroy, the above graph shows the audience share for most of the news channels' audience share for the month of June.

As seen in the graph, eNCA remains the most watched news channel in the graph, still holding more than half the total audience share. eNCA has been the news leader by more than a mile for quite a few years, but it seems as if they finished first for the very first time the way on air talent like Gareth Edwards and Justice Malala reacted on Twitter to seeing this graph on Twitter.

SABC News also continues to grow, now cementing its place as the second most watched news channel in the country. At the SABC Upfronts for advertisers and the media, the organisation said they plan on receiving R25 million worth of ad revenue from  the channel in this year.

South Africa's third news channel, ANN7, is the fourth most watched news channel on the DStv platform, behind Skynews. Though its 7% market share is something some may laugh at, it is a vast improvement from the 2% it had in its first few months. Unlike SABC  News that plans on attracting R25million in ad revenue this year, one just needs to watch ANN7 to see how it severely lacks any commercial advertising. Its on air ads comprises almost completely of ANN7 promos, DStv Promos, Public Service Announcements and ads for its sister newspaper, The New Age.

To analyse the data in this graph further, I thought I would rearrange the data by channel number:

As seen here, when channels are rearranged to reflect the order of their channel numbers, the further a channel is from eNCA, the lower its viewership tends to be. It can also be read that being on a channel number closer to eNCA is a hot property if you want to catch the attention of channel surfers who are looking for news to watch should eNCA be in an ad break or taped programming.

ANN7's Hajra Omarjee Reporting Live From BRICS Summit

ANN7's Senior Political Correspondent (and host of Political Edge), Hajra Omarjee, is reporting live from Fortaleza, Brazil where the 6th BRICS Summit is taking place this week. She will be reporting live throughout the day as events unfold and also to provide commentary and will continue to do so throughout the three day summit.

President Jacob Zuma is, of course, attending the summit where the BRICS Development Bank is expected to be inaugurated at.

Though Hajra is a political correspondent, ANN7 does not have a business centric broadcast (but the news channel oddly has a daily sport and entertainment show that airs multiple times throughout the day), they are the only channel providing on the ground coverage of the event. Neither SABC News' prime time business anchor, Francis Herd (or any other anchor or correspondent), nor eNCA's Arabile Gumede are attending the event.

World Cup Final Coverage Review

On Sunday, 13 July 2014, the final of the FIFA World Cup took place. In South Africa, the event was broadcast live on SABC1 and also on Supersport, who beamed the event to the whole Sub-Saharan Africa. Here is a review of the coverage on both channels, as well as on the news c hannels that provided considerable coverage of the event.

Supersport

Though the broadcaster had build up throughout their World Cup Live slot from 1pm-4pm, their "offical" buildup started at 18:30 CAT with Robert Marawa, Neil Andrews and Bonang Matheba (who had changed to a glitzy dress from her more informal wear on World Cup Live) welcoming viewers from the garden studio, referred to as the "Grand Stand" throughout their coverage.
They preview what to expect in tonight's coverage, also stating that they will be previewing SuperSports' other sports that they will be broadcasting in the year to come, including the PSL, rugby and cricket.  

Supersport's 2014 World Cup final panel. From Left to Right: Sean bartlett, Ernst Middendorp, John Dykes, Sammy Kuffour, Robert Marawa, Gaizka Mendietta and John Barnes

Following a short video package, Marawa is in Studio 6 with what he describes as a "massive panel." He then says they are going to break tradition and do predictions first as he introduces the panel. Sammy Kuffour is the first panelist introduced and states he is breaking tradition and will be supporting Argentina tonight because he just loves Messi. John Barnes is introduced next and he says the tournament has been better than expected. Ernst Middendorp and Gaizka Mendieta are introduced next, followed by Shaun Bartlett and John Dykes, who says they are going to "make things serious",  are at the touchscreen. Throughout their introduction, and intermittently throughout the broadcast, they would cut to live visuals from the various fanparks.

They then throw back to Neil, who is sitting on the little stage in the "grandstand", and is extra perky tonight working his audience, is joined by Bradley Carnell as they also do a short preview. Bradley I felt deserved to be a part of the main panel as he has been Supersports' main Bundeliga analyst (the domestic league of Germany, one of the finalists) and really provides esxceptional insight. As one would thus expect, their discussion has a German focus

Bonang is standing by with illusionist Ilan Smith, who is going to predict the outcome of tonight's match, puts it in an envelop, which is subsequently attached to a shoe which is in turn padlocked into a glass box and delivered to the main studio where it will sit alongside Marawa for the greater part of tonight's coverage.I felt this segment could have been produced more excitingly and not as draging as it did. As someone that initially did not find this exciting (though I eventually did), I felt as if what was the point in the whole thing?

(18:53-First Ad break, which is quite late considering how often they take breaks during coverage)

This was where things  went for a down turn. While SABC1 was in the middle of what I thought was exceptional buildup to the Closing Ceremony, Supersport decided that the pay channel needed to start a whole long informercial on what felt like all of their upcoming sporting events, nearly blocking out the worldcup completely for what seemed like just way too long.

The first of these promotional clips was for their coverage of the various European football leagues. It started with a video package , followed by start dates then a discussion between Neil Andrews, who now has John Dykes Bradley Carnell and John Barnes with him to discuss these leagues. John Dykes then  highlighted his stay in SA, followed by preview discussion of English Premier League. He also discussed the production side of things, mentioning they will have a brand new studio (the previous one was used for one season), though he later stated it wont be as big as the Supersport one, and thatthey plan on having more current Premier League coaches on their panel this season, last season they had four. Bradley Carnell then talks about Bundesliga, followed by Neil Andrews who says Supersport plans on covering "all" Afcon Qualifiers live, which doesn't seem very realistic.

Following this, the studio panel reminded viewers that this is actually a World Cup Final Build Up and not a way for Supersport to advertise themselves in the hopes of retaining viewers who got DStv just for the world cup by now discussing standout players in the World Cup.

This didn't last too long as Marawa then plugged a video hyping the channels' Rugby plans, followed
A video promoting Supersports' rugby coverage, followed by Marawa highlighting upcoming fixtures then Neil talking to Owen Nkumane, a Supersport rugby personality, while Bradley Carnell sat uninterested behind him.

Finally, there was a short buildup to the closing closing ceremony, which paled in comparison to the exceptional Closing Ceremony Build Up that was provided on SABC1, one of the few times the free-to-air broadcaster provided a better quality broadcast than the paytv broadcaster

The actual closing ceremony aired next. The sound of the closing ceremony was terrible as Supersport did not seem to have access to the actual audio feed of the music, only the stadium sounds, meaning viewers were unable to hear the singers actually singing onstage, yet again providing a subpar broadcast compared to the public broadcaster.[Side note: Supersport had a mess up with the closing ceremony in 2010 as well when they did not have Nelson Mandela's appearance live, showing it a few minutes after it had already aired on SABC 1, while the studio presenter acted as if the visuals seen was live]

As if the closing ceremony was a chore for the channel, they put minimal effort into analysing it, instead now doing a promotional set for the South African football tournaments. Neil discussed this with Bloem Celtic coach Ernst Middendorp, followed by what is now the formulaic promotional setup for cricket now again (Neil Andrews then discusses with paul Adams), all wasting away minutes that should have been used to buildup to a World Cup match.

At 20:00 CAT, Neil Andrews and Bonang Matheba sign off from the "grandstand", with Bonang stating that the "official buildup starts now", an hour before the match is to start, shorter than the 90 minutes every other match got afforded. The starting lineups are analysed at the touch screen followe by a very average in studio buildup. They did not have one live crossover to Brazil, because their person on the ground that they usually had doing live links, Carol Tshabalala, was attending the match as a fan.

Following the match, their analysis was purely exceptional. It was really a feel good end of the world cup in studio once all was said and done. Throughout their wrap up, theycontinued having live visuals from Brazil as well. As a soccer fan watching the world cup mainly on SUpersport you have a sort of attachment to the people that you saw more than the soccer players themselves and the ending really provided that "end of the series" feel that one wants. They also did what seems to now be a tradition of doing crossovers to viewing parties in Ghana and Nigeria as well.

This glass box contains the shoe to which illusionist Ilan Smith's World Cup Final prediction was attached

Before they signed off, it was time for the moment of truth:opening the box with the prediction in. They brought the illusionist back in, something he said he would not do had he not gotten the answer correct. Eventually, the envelop was opened and not only did it contain the correct score, but the correct goal scorer and time of goal as well. John Dykes stated that he had seen Dynamo perform a similar trick, to which the illusionist said he is honored to have been compared to Dynamo.

At the end of the broadcast at just before1am, everyone in studio got the opportunity to say goodbye individually and reflect upon the experience. Everyone said they had enjoyed the experience as being a part of a world class broadcast team.

John Barnes stated he will continue being a part of Supersport for the next few years, saying that since he debuted during the 2010 World Cup that he had become part of the furniture there.

John Dykes had an amazing experience in South Africa and is looking forward to covering the English Premier League from their brand new studio in England.

Shaun Bartlett stated that this was his last broadcast as part of the Supersport team as he will be going into coaching fulltime in the upcoming season. He was previously a part of the coverage of all Supersport's local and international football presentations and also a regular on Monday Night Football with Neil Andrews.

Sammy Kuffour said it is back to Ghana for him as well, though he will continue being a part of the UEFA Champions League coverage.

Gaizka Mendieta and Ernst Medendorp, both new to Supersport stated they enjoyed the experience, though neither stated whether they will continue being a part of the broadcaster in the future.

At the end of the broadcaster Marawa signed off with his traditional sign off, Qim Shelele, though everyone joined in for the Shelele for the final time. This was followed by a fading of the lights and the in studio camera stayed on longer than usual, showing the silhouettes of everyone shaking hands at the end of the broadcast.
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CNNI

Throughout the World Cup, CNN has been providing near rolling coverage of the event as the channel continue what now seems like an extremely aggressive expansion of its World Sport programming. They capped off this coverage by airing a one hour live special at 8pm CAT, titled World Sport Live, anchored from Brazil by Alex thomas and Amanda Davies, both of whom have been part of the channel's extensive coverage.The special highlighted the fans and the experience itself more than the game, though there was a bit of buildup and analysis and also recapping previous games. They encouraged social media interaction as well throughout the program. Throughout the rest of the night, the channel provided extensive coverage in the first half hours of all their news programming with a mix of WOrld Cup and other news in the second.
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 Local News Channels

Of the local news channels, ANN7 had sports presenters stationed around the country doing live inserts throughout the evening. SABC News covered the World Cup as part of their regularly scheduled programming. Their daily sports show, Sports Live, had an in studio panel previewing the match. eNCA, the only local news channel around for the previous world cup, only covered  the final during their regular sports segments. In 2010 they extended their signoff time by half an hour to get reaction to the final, though there was no such coverage this time around.
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 SABC1

Thomas Mlambo presented coverage on South Africa's other official broadcaster of the final, SABC1. 

Unlike Supersport, SABC 1's on air talent were not under to try and get as much world  cup subscribers to continue subscribing after the tournament. As such, they were more relaxed and focussed all their energies on the events and not on promoting other sports.

Their buildup to the closing ceremony was done as well as they would build up to an actual match, highlighting things like how many times Shakira had performed at closing ceremonies and what to expect, in what was a very relaxed conversation. They also stayed nearly completely with live visuals from Brazil, very rarely showing the in studio guys. During the actual closing, the audio quality on the channel was much better than on Supersport.

The opening ceremony was followed by the final epsiode of Kasi to Favelas, hosted byPearl Modiade and Maps Maponyane. They interacted with viewers on Instagram and other social networks intermittently with recap videos.The show was however, cut short to return to the build up


Their post match analysis was decent, but on the short side

eNCA Adds Couch to Set

eNCA Sports anchor, Angie Ellse, smiling for a picture from the #MWEBTweetSeat from where the channel's sports bulletins now originate from.

eNCA (DStv 403), SA's mosy watched local news channel, has added  a new orange couch, with cusions to its set in front of the large screen towards the right of the main set from where News Night is done.

The couch setup, which seems to be sponsored by Mweb and referred to by the hashtag #MWEBTweetSeat, replaces the standing desk that has traditionally been used from the large screen. These days, the large screen is mainly used for Sports reports, though it is regularly used for other news and special reports.

The #MWEBTweetSeat also has its own Twitter account promoting the account and displaying tweets from not only this, but also other Tweet Seats (The seats make it easier for its sitter to tweet). More here: MWeb launches #MWEBTweetSeat to comment on soccer

This is, however, not the first time the channel has used couches in its main eNCA studio as they tested using blue couches from the same position for 'softer' segments a few years back.

No word on how long the couch will be on air for.

It has also been seen on SABC News' Morning Live with Leanne Manas:

Leanne Manas of Morning Live on the #MwebTweetSeat

Afrikaans News Saga: Why SABC3's Footprint is Really Something to be Concerned About

In future I would like to do a full analysis of how moving the Afrikaans news from SABC 2 to SABC 3 will affect it but for now I would just like to draw attention to one of the bigger issues at hand in the whole saga: the fact that SABC 3's footprint, the locations where South Africans can receive SABC 3 using a standard aerial, dwarfs that of SABC 2.

The media have used various ways of illustrating this including the overall fewer viewers that SABC 3 has compared to SABC 2 while Thinus went as far as actually providing a count of the amount of towers each channel has.

I am going to use one simple metric: The viewership of Isidingo.

Isidingo is by far the least watched SABC soap on television during primetime. This is no secret. What people rarely know is that when Isiddingo repeats on SABC 1 in the morning, when fewer people watch tv, the viewership of the repeat in the morning beats the viewership of the prime time airing often by sizeable margins.

During the final phase of the group stages of the World Cup, SABC 3 aired some World Cup games, pre empting its schedule, meaning that Isidingo aired on SABC 2 on those days.

Simply shifting the soap from the lesser watched SABC 3 to the more watched SABC 2 caused viewership of the soap to MORE THAN TRIPLE in comparison to viewership of the same soapie in the same week on SABC 3.

Isidingo Viewership (week of 23 to 29 June):
SABC 2 - 5,244,000
SABC 3 - 1,374,000

 This makes me think exactly how many viewers will be missing news in their language while SABC 2 wants to air cheap to produce gameshows in that slot.

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.

ANN7 Expands new show, I Am South Africa, to air daily in the buildup to their first ever South African of the Year Awards

Recently, ANN7 added another magazine show to the channel, I Am South African which highlights the positive change made by everyday South Africans in the country. The feel good show, now broadcast daily at 5pm for an hour is being billed as a "first of its kind by any broadcaster" by ANN7. It allows viewers the opportunity to get to know South Africans that are making a positive change in the world around them. Moegsien Williams, ANN7 editor-in-chief, said at a launch event on June 19th that the show will highlight the unsung heroes in our country.


"At the same time I wanted to pay tribute, but at the same time I wanted to create a talk show property. Both those elements are important." These are the words of Executive Producer, Dale Herbst, who described this 76 part show. The show is said to also focus more on what inspires young people of the country.

Hulisani Ravele is the host of ANN7's daily I Am South African, which airs daily at 5pm as part of the channels build up to the inaugural South African of the Year Awards being held by the channel on September 6th

 Host, Hulisani Ravele, says she is so proud to be a part of this show. Hulisani, known to many South Africans simply as CC, is a former child star who was a Yotv presenter for over 12 years and also a former Yebo Millionaires presenter, both at SABC 1. She returns to television after a few years of being a part of the corporate world.
 
All of this is part of  the buildup to the inaugural South African of the Year Awards that will be hosted by the channel on  September 6th at the Johannesburg Convention Centre in an evening that is said to have a star studded lineup along with over 1 000 specially invited guests for the awards. Following the trend of other awards shows in the country (I am looking at you, Mtv African Music Awards), the channel is still working on securing the services of a well known international personality for the evening. The awards are set to recognise the efforts made by inspirational citizens who had made an impactful change in the country in the last calender year. The event forms part of the channel's first anniversary celebrations. The channel celebrates a year on air on August 21st.

Viewer participation is also vital, as they will vote on the nominees in the different categories of the awards. Viewers will choose from a selection of nominees chosen by, as editor Moegsien Williams describes it, "a super jury of editors," who are well known editors from around the country who will each work with their own small teams to find the nominees.

The categories for the awards are:

• Favourite Celebrity
• Favourite Campaign
• Favourite Sportsperson
• Favourite business person
• Spirit of Humanity
• Favourite Young South African
• Favourite student: Matric
• Favourite student: Varsity
• Favourite South African