SABC launches local government elections show

[Forgive me for not posting about this sooner]

Along with shifting news bulletins around and new show launches, the 4th of July also saw the launch of the SABC's traditional election build up show.

'Election 2016,' as it is referred to, is a daily 30 minute election news roundup and daily topic analysis anchored by Morning Live's Leanne Manas, who is joined by Simphiwe Ncongwane. These two are joined on set by Thabiso Sithole who tends to do the in depth interviews. It airs from 6pm on both SABC2 (in the former slot of the multilingual news bulletin) and SABC News Channel (in place of the first half hour of Prime Time News). In addition, it repeats at midnight on both channels and is also uploaded onto SABC News' Youtube channel.

The show is broadcast live from the new studio that was launched for the rugby world cup last year. At the time, I said it may not be the best sports studio in the country (nothing comes close to what is done at Supersport), but it is by far the best studio among the news broadcasters.

The show also encourages viewer interaction by asking viewers to tweet a reply to their daily question using the hashtag #SABCElection2016.

The first segment of the show follows the format of a general news bulletin, but with an election focus, followed by an in depth piece and discussion about a specific topic in the second segment. This is then followed by a minute of members of the public answering a question about the elections. The final segment starts with an SABC Election tradition of giving a smaller party a minute to sell themselves to the public.

The show joins ANN7's SA Decides as so far the only two daily dedicated election news bulletins in the country.