ANN7 announces hosts for I Am South African

ANN7 today announced that both Hulisani Ravele and Maps Maponyane will be returning to the channel to host the South African of the Year build up show, I Am South African.

Hulisani hosted the first 'season' of the show in 2014, whilst Maps apparently hosted the second season. During the 2014 season, Ravele hosted each and every edition of the show, Monday to Friday, and even taped weekend editions of the show. However, she did not get to host the South African of the Year Awards that year, which was instead hosted by Bonang Matheba.

In 2015, Maps was announced as the host of both I Am South African and the awards show. However, he was seen so rarely on the daily chat show with regular ANN7 anchors filling in for him on most days. Maponyane was only ever in studio for big interviews and then off on the other days.

“Maps and I are excited that ANN7 has brought us back to host a show that promotes the narrative of positivity about South African. I had a great time in 2014 and I can’t wait for the viewers to see what we have in store for them this year,” Hulisani said in a statement.

“I’m excited to host the show with Hulisani. I think it’s a great way to celebrate this year’s most innovative, inspiring and entertaining work by South Africans,” Maps added.

The two are also slated to host the South African of the Year Awards.

I Am South African premieres on ANN7 (DStv 405) on September 12th.

ANN7 could, would, probably will have new owners by year end

The controversial Gupta family today (rather unexpectedly) announced that they will be selling all their ownership stakes in their South African businesses. Among these is a stake in Infinity Media, which runs ANN7 (and national newspaper, The New Age).


Currently, Oakbay Investments, which is the Gupta's investment arm, owns a 35% stake in Infinity Media. Mabengela Investments, which owns a 21% investment in the company, is owned and ran by friends and associates of the Gupta family, including Duduzane Zuma. (The rest of Infinity Media's owners is made up of ANN7's managers and a 35% stake owned by an Indian media conglomerate which also owns Zee World).

The family hopes to divest from the country by the end of the year and say they are in talks with international investors about purchasing their business interests.

The Guptas' stake in Infinity Media will most likely be sold indirectly when Oakbay is sold, though the possibility remains that the media house could be spun off on its own from investors that are not interested in taking over a newspaper and tv news channel, both of which have struggling brands.

Both ANN7 and The New Age are going to struggle in the coming year when it comes to ad revenue (as if they have not already been struggling). Most companies that advertise through the two avenues are either Gupta-owned or are owned by associates of the Gupta family, if not government agencies.

That in itself would deter investors who obviously do not want to invest in businesses looking at declining revenue streams. When you purchase a media house, one of the bigger things your are actually purchasing is the brands and the brand loyalty. After all, it is easier to start a newspaper than it is to build a loyal base. In this case, both have been accused of favouring certain individuals politically, proven to infringe upon workers rights, and have small market shares, among others, all factors that could chase investors away.

The next few months just unexpectedly became interesting.

[Persoanlly, I hope ANN7 gets owners that breathe new life into the channel. Though they continue to invest in young talent, they do seem to be plateauing and new, exciting leadership might just be what they need to break the next ceiling]

eNCA interviews Trevor Noah

eNCA this weekend will be featuring an in-depth interview with Trevor Noah, the first interview of its kind since Noah took the reigns of Comedy Central's The Daily Show.

eNCA senior anchor, Jeremy Maggs, flew to New York City to interview Noah at The Daily Show's New York Studio.

The wide-ranging interview, titled as if it is a standup comedy special, "Trevor Noah: Unplugged and Plugged In," covers topics including Noah's pressure to succeed and what it is like covering American politics at this strange point in time.

"For me being able to pay the rent doing comedy in South Africa, that means I'd succeeded and now successfully touring the country, that means I've succeeded and if I tried to go international and I failed, I wouldn't call it a failure of myself," says Noah.

The interview is also available on eNCA's website and will be featured on the channel throughout the weekend.

ANN7 South African of the Year Awards' judges revealed

ANN7 today announced the judges for the channel's third annual South African of the Year Awards. The judges come from all spheres of society and are considered icons in their respective industries.

• Basetsana Kumalo (Philanthropist and media mogul)
• Brian Baloyi (Former goalkeeper for the national soccer team)
• Sophie Ndaba (Former actress on popular soap, Generations)
• Sipho 'Hotstix' Mabuse (Musician)
• DJ Sbu (TV personality, radio presenter, musician, business man, youth leader and CNBC Africa presenter)
• Mantombi Makhumbele (Writer, journalist and fashion blogger)
• Carla Viktor (Miss Earth 2015)

As always, these judges will not choose the winner of the main category, South African of the Year, which will still be viewer voted. 

The ANN7 South African of the Year Awards takes place November 25th at the Ticket Pro Dome.

ANN7 is the 2nd most watched news channel for the first time ever

For the first time since the start of the three news channel system in 2013, ANN7 was the second most watched news channel on the DStv platform.

The channel pulled ahead of the SABC News Channel for the week of 8 August to 14 August 2016.

The road has been very rough for the Infinity Media channel, facing many behind the scenes problems as they grew. At certain points over the past three years, the channel has even fallen to fourth place behind Sky News.

Interestingly, all three the channel's most watched programmes (seen in the image above) are weekend recap shows, showing that viewers must really like that (and it explains why the channel produces so many of them).

On the victory, ANN7 original, Abigail Visagie, tweeted, "YASSS!!! I've been there since the very beginning and I'm so proud of our growth! #TeamANN7 the future is ours!"

[Another thing we can deduce from the graphic is that since ANN7 was number 2 for the first time after the elections, SABC News was still number two on election day]

RATINGS: July 2016 News and actuality highlights

• As usual, the Zulu news and the Xhosa on SABC1 were on top, by far. The Zulu bulletin pulled 4.4 million viewers with the Xhosa one pulling 4.3 million viewers.
• Current affairs programme, Speak Out was SABC2's biggest news and actuality show, pulling in 2.1 million viewers.
• The top news bulletin on SABC2 was the Afrikaans news which was able to draw 1.43 million viewers, which is on par with its June viewership. What makes this more impressive is that the bulletin moved half hour later in July. However, unlike the last time when the buletin moved to 7:30pm (and viewership dipped), the bulletin now had the benefit of its traditional lead in, 7de Laan, too moving half hour later so viewers could keep their traditional Afrikaans hour as is, just slightly later.
• The multilingual news bulletin (something that shouldn't exist under 90% local because there is absolutely no reason why these languages can't get equal time like the others) drew 1.36 million viewers, down 300 000 viewers from June.
• The documentary show that just doesn't die, 50/50, somehow still manages 1.2 million viewers after all these years.
• The English news bulletin on SABC3 continues to build an audience , drawing 870 000 viewers in July.
• The long-struggling Afternoon Express pulled an impressive 730 000 viewers as a result of being on air an hour later at 5pm, which is essentially an early evening hour, but okay.
• The 6pm Headlines edition of eNews Direct continues to benefit from its WWE lead in, pulling over 2.5 million viewers on the weekends. The usual weekday edition still struggles though, not cracking the channels top 20 programming.
• DSTV's top 30 programmes now get released on one list and not one news programme made the platform's top 30. Not Carte Blanche. Nothing on eNCA, on any news channel. Not one of Kyknet's million news and actuality programmes. Not even a sports news programme. nothing.  For perspective, the 30th ranked programme, an Africa Magic movie, pulled 219 000 viewer.

2016 Football broadcast rights for South Africa

I know this is not what I usually cover, but below are the various major soccer leagues and where to find them for the 2016-2017 football season.

Supersport is available on DStv
Starsat Sort is available on Starsat
Fox Sports is available on Starsat
SABC is available on all platforms

eTV to cut newsroom staff

This has been a horrible year to be in broadcast news.

etv  today informed staff in their Cape Town newsroom that they would basically all have to reapply for their jobs, except for journalists and cameramen.

This as the group continues to streamline operations (which they started a year ago by shutting their African news division, among others) and shifting their operations mainly to Johannesburg. The Cape Town newsroom will simply become just another bureau within the group.

Currently, News Day (eNCA), eNews Direct Weekend (etv) and the Zulu news bulletin (eKasi+) originates from Cape Town. The group's weather team is Cape Town based as well.

When etv started a news division, they started out of Cape Town solely, opening a Johannesburg Newsroom after facing criticism of being to Cape Town-centric.

eMedia Investments says “the current function is spread across two cities and two companies; Johannesburg and Cape Town, e.tv and eNCA”.

“It is critical for a restructure to happen, however, no decision has been made, and will not be made without open, honest and full consultation with employees who may be impacted. e.tv and eNCA are committed to ensuring that employees are treated fairly through this difficult process”.

IN PICTURES: 2016 Municipal Elections (Plus closing comments)

Mmusi Maimane talking to ANN7's Sindy mabe in what was a rather tough interview on Municipal Elections Night

ANN7's SA Decides team spent their last few days on the job pushing long hours to reach voters in every corner of the country

Iman Rappetti with Thulasizwe Similane and Justice Malala providing some build up to the first results in the 2016 Municipal Elections

eNCA's Newsroom on Election Day

Devan Murugan and Naatasha Thorp continued the SABC's rolling coverage of the 2016 Municipal Elections

eNCA had some reporters reporting via Skype. Enough of this now. I am so over cellphone reporting

CNBC Africa hosted quite an insightful election day panel focusing on the money matters

All the news channels carried President Jacob Zuma voting live

Strangely, the SABC had their most recognised and experienced anchors anchoring the breakfast show hours on election day. Leanne Manas and Peter Ndoro were on air from 5am on Election Day

Peter van Onselen was forced to anchor alone after his planned coanchor for the day, Chante Jantjies had to call in sick on what would be the biggest news day of the year

Uveka Rangappa taking a selfie with the eNCA studio crew on Election Day. As always, Uveka anchored extended hours by herself

Final thoughts:
Young talent. That is what stood out for me. Both ANN7 and SABC News were not afraid to let their young anchors carry the day. SABC news made a bold decision to have the experienced Leanne Manas and Peter Ndoro anchor in the morning as opposed to prime time. Even having the two of them together as opposed to splitting them up to have more hours covered was brave. However, the likes of Alicia Jali and the channel's other anchors that have only been on air since the channel launched in 2013 were more than capable to hold their own.

The same could be said for ANN7. However, ANN7 depended more on younger journalists in the field. The only young prominent anchor to make an election debut was Audrey Chimwanda, who hosted SA Decides. Even though Sindy Mabe is well known on the domestic broadcasst news scene, this was her first time anchoring extended coveerage as well (Prior to joining ANN7, Mabe hosted Sunrise on eTV but she never got to anchor election coverage as eTV opted for eNCA's feed on election day). It was odd having sports anchors Peter Stemmet and Edwin Kgaswe unexpectedly anchoring extended hours of election coverage though.

eNCA's coverage lacked the said youthful spirit. The only first time anchor on Election Day was Cathy Mohlahlana and even she has contributed greatly to previous elections as a reporter. Yes, I know that if it is not broken, do not fix it, but eNCA could really do with a breath of fresh (younger) air somehwere. They had the oldest anchor/analyst line up by far. Yes this led to the best production overall, but it lacked excitement.

In closing, an Election Day broadcast is a major project that channel's dont get to practice to perfection due to their rarity. Unlike in the US where channels get to do wall to wall coverage for debates and conventions and the likes, local news channels do not have that many opportunities to improve their rolling coverage skills. This led to on air mistakes by everyone. Everyone. But it was nice to watch and basically cheer them on. It was particularly nice on eNCA to actually run a story highlighting the channel's own mess ups.

Motheo Khoaripe named new eNCA prime time business anchor

eNCA this past week finally announced a new prime-time business anchor, months after Arabile Gumede left.Motheo Khoaripe will take up this position once the election season dies down.

Khoaripe's appointment marks the first time the channel has promoted someone from within its ranks to the prime time business anchor role. He has been producing and reporting for the channel since late 2014, doing mainly financial stories, most prominently for Moneyline.

Prior to joining eNCA the University of Johannesburg graduate reported for the Kasi Times.

Among his duties as anchor, Khoaripe will anchor the business segments during News Night and Afternoon News and also fill in as anchor on Moneyline. In addition, he will continue reporting on major financial stories.

eNCA announces new anchors for News Day

eNCA this week announced that Amy McIver and Shahan Ramkissoon  will take over as anchors of the channel's lunchtime show, News Day.

They replace Andrew Barnes, who left the channel earlier this year, and Michelle Craig, who goes on maternity leave in September.

McIver has been the anchor of eTV's weekend bulletin for years now as that bulletin originates from Cape Town and has been the main fill-in anchor on News Day as well.

Shahan, who was previously a longtime reporter at the channel, left eNCA in 2014 to become the US-based correspondent for then new African news channel, Arise News. However, since that channel fell apart early this year, he has been freelancing at eNCA, mainly fill-in anchoring for their Johannesburg-based bulletins. He has slowly also been transitioning to reporting in a similar style as the now departed Yusuf Omar.

News Day airs on eNCA weekdays  from 1pm-4pm CAT.

LIVE BLOG: 2016 Municipal Elections

SABC NEWS
-Peter Ndoro and Leanne Manas anchored Morning Live from the IEC Results Center in Pretoria. All three hours of Morning Live were simulcast on SABC2 instead of just the first 2. At 8:21am, Morning Live interviewed opposition leader, Mmusi Maimane, live from the station where he was voting.
-At 9am, Eben Jansen and Desiree Chauke took over coverage from Pretoria with Elvis Preslin in studio.
-Siphephile Kunene is in Nkomazi
-Paballo Lephaka ‏ is in Melville
-Bongi Mogale is reporting from throughout Johannesburg
-Arbra Barbier is in Cape Town
-At 9:30am, SABC News broadcast Desmond Tutu voting live
-At 1pm, the SABC News feed started simulcasting during the lunch time slot on SABC3, meaning that viewers on SABC 2 and SABC3 were watching the same thing. Natasha Thorp and Devan Murugan
At 3pm, Alicia Jali took over the anchoring duties solo with Samm Marshall on the floor in the results center.
-Blain Herman and Francis Herd anchored prime time from 6pm. Why them you ask? Well this block of programming will be featuring the least on free tv (where most viewers are) as SABC2 opt for its regular prime time schedule instead of simulcasting SABC News.

eNCA
-eTV's regular breakfast how, Sunrise, was preempted this morning for eNCA's Morning News Today, which was anchored by Uveka Rangappa from the main eNCA studio (for some reason the channel always keeps her at eNCA's headquarters instead of sending her to Pretoria). eNCA's Zikhona Tshona is in Vuwani.
-At 8:30, eNCA's Xoli Mngambi interviewed ANC's Nelson Mandela Metropol candidate, Danny Jordaan, just after he voted. Jordaan expressed that he expects to win with 51% of the votes.
-Soon after 08:30, eNCA spoke to chief opposition leader, Mmusi Maimane just after he voted.
-At 9am, the simulcast on eTV ended.
-Lirandzu Themba is in Atteridgeville.
-Thulasizwe Simelane is at the IEC Results Center.
-Bongiwe Khumalo is in Kwa-Zulu Natal.
-Malungelo Booi is in Mthatha
-Uveka was joined by Gareth Edwards for the later morning hours.
-After 6 hours on air, Uveka handed over to Cathy Mohlahlana and Joanne Josephs for the next few hours. (This is the first time the two have been conanchoring since Joanne was moved to Afternoon News)
-eNCA's rolling coverage continues into the 1pm News Day slot on eTV
-The channel has way too many taped stories
-In prime time, Jeremy Maggs and Siki Mgabadeli anchored from the channels studio. Again, nothing major from the results center.
At just after 10pm, DA leader, Mmusi Maimane stopped at eNCA's booth at the IEC Center. The interview with Iman Rappetti was quite in depth. Maimane stated that he was quietly optimistic about the results.
-Iman has Jody Jacobs with he through the night to do the number crunching.

ANN7
-Abigail Visagie and sports anchor, Peter Stemmet, anchored ANN7's morning hours from the channel's studio in Midrand. The channel is also allowing viewers to share their voting pictures with the channel via Whatsapp.
-At 08:36, ANN7 spoke to ABC Mayoral candidate for Tshwane, Thoko Didize.
-ANN7's Buntu Williams repoted live throughout the morning from the IEC Results Center.
-Peter van Onselen and Chante Jantjies took over coverage from the studio at 9am.
-Kgothatso Phatladira is in Tshwane
-Karabo Yibe is in Ekurhuleni
-Michael Appel reported live from different regions in and around Johannesburg
-Peter Stemmet and Abigail Visagie returned to the air for the lunchtime shift.
-If you want to get on the ground elections coverage, ANN7 is the best, BY FAR. They just keep speaking to regular voters while the other channels prefer in studio talk
-At 4pm, Audrey Chimwanda joins Peter van Onselen as co anchor. Audrey has of course been anchoring the channel's electoral buildup programme, SA Decides. This is also her election day debut.
-In prime time, Sindy Mabe and sports editor, Edwin Kgaswe anchored from the Results Center, hosting a large panel. The channel's results graphics have been rolled out already, even though the first results are expected from 9pm.
-Viewers are flooding online too with ANN7, who gives its feed away free online, has seen its website overloaded multiple times in prime time.
-At 21:25, ANN7 cut away from Sindy Mabe mid sentence to go toa reporter getting opposition leader Mmusi Maimane's first reaction to the first result in this election, a DA victory in the Great Kai ward in the Eastern Cape.
CORRECTION: Chante Jantjies was scheduled to co anchor with Peter van Onselen but tweeted that she wasn not going to be on air due to illness. As a journalist that must be the absolute worst knowing you missing out on an election.
-After speaking to eNCA in the 10pm hour, Mmusi Maimane stopped by ANN7's studio at the Results Center. The interview was rather spicy with voices raised between Maimane and Sindy Mabe. Maimane stated that he will not enter into a coalition anywhere with a party that is corrupt.
-One thing I have to fault ANN7 on is the choice of Nandi Ntoni as the prime time relief anchor that carries things for a few minutes to allow the regulars a break. She is not terrible (bad, maybe), but he does not provide any valuable insight. She displays something that I noticed in Abigail Visagie earlier (though Visagie was much better than her) in that the channel's younger anchors lack skills to carry the broadcast without a script.

President
At 10am, all news channels crossed over live to Nkandla where President Zuma and his family voted. However, the President decided to stand in line with the regular citizens and all the channels decided to only cut back to him just after 10:30am when he entered the voting station. A few minutes after that, the channels all carried an impromptu informal QnA with the President.

CNBC Africa has been on air these last few hours providing what is basically a live panel discussing the elections from their studio. Very little on the ground reporting.

LIVE BLOG:2016 Municipal election eve

Here we go:
-SABC News Channel is the first channel to broadcast from the IEC Election Results Center for a special 90 minute edition of their daily election programme. Chriselda Lewis is on hand to provide analysis.

-ANN7 is the next to start broadcasting from the center with Sindy Mabe and Audrey Chimwanda from SA Decides coanchoring, preempting the channel's regular prime time schedule. The channel is already going with just using the SA Decides graphics. Who ever set up the channel's live spot is silly: there is just a banner behind the anchors without viewers getting a sense of what it is like to be in the results center.
Siki Mgabadeli is anchoring News night from eNCA's studio whilst Jeremy Maggs is holding the fort at the Results Center.
-eNCA and ANN7 are carrying the IEC's press conference live, SABC News talking about selfies.
-Blain Herman and Francis Herd are anchoring the main English news bulletin on SABC3 and SABC News Channel with sports anchor, Kendal Makgamathe, doing the news headlines at the tops and botttoms of hours.
-eTV has nothing special going on with their regular news show, eNews Direct, with Dudu Ramela in studio.
-[I LOVE the SABC News Channel's desk at the IEC Center]
- An anchoring swap on ANN7 with Edwin Kgaswe now sitting alongside Sindy Mabe who has a massive panel with them at the IEC Results Center.
- At 9pm ANN7 goes with Africa Tonight instead of continuing rolling coverage.

-At 9pm, SABC News Channel aired Your World from their Auckland Park studio though retaining a heavy electoral focus while anchors at the IEC Center did a few segments from there.
At 9pm, Florence Lotoaba took over coverage from eNCA's main studio.

eNCA unveils elections set

Take a look at eNCA's set that will be used for the local elections tomorrow.
It is just their regular studio with a few tweaks which does at least make it feel as if they taking things seriously.
What is missing? A desk

Vuyo MMvoko's case postponed... again

Vuyo Mvoko's court case to be reinstated at the SABC has once again been postponed. Any hope of Mvoko appearing on air tomorrow as part of election coverage is now gone.

Election day broadcast plans: eNCA

eNCA's election day coverage starts bright and early on election day at 5am (who really wants to wake up early on a public holiday?) with the Morning News Today team.

This will only be the start of what will eventually be 48 hours of live, non-stop rolling coverage of the election on the channel that calls itself "Your independent elections channel."

The channel's large team of reporters will be deployed to each and every province, with a major part of the channel's coverage originating from the main IEC Center in Pretoria.

eNCA will continue to use the same formula that they have used with the previous few elections: one anchor in studio and one anchor in the results center, with both of them working extended hours on air. In addition, News Days, which airs from Cape Town, will not be on air this election day.

In addition, the channel will feature exclusive political commentary and analysis from both in house commentators like Angelo Fick and Justice Malala as well as external analysts.

As the channel this year officially launched their own polling platform with Ipsos, they will also have statisticians and social media analysts on air

eNCA is available on DStv 403, and is streamed live on their website for viewers outside of South Africa. No word yet if the channel is planning to live stream the day in its entirety on Youtube as they had done in the past

Election day broadcast plans: ANN7

ANN7, along with the other domestic news channels, will be going with wall-to-wall election coverage.

On election day (August 3rd), the channel's entire broadcast day will be branded as 'SA Decides,' which is the name of the channel's running election programme.

As has been the focus of SA Decides, the channel's focus will continue to be on on the ground reporting, with the nine regioinal SA Decides teams all being deployed to each province's respective Regional Results Center.

In addition, the channel's main anchoring will be broadcast from their usual studio in Midrand as well as the main results center in Pretoria. Because South Africa still takes a while to count votes, the channel will continue coverage from this center for the rest of the week as well.

The channel will also be live overnight on Wednesday. The usual anchors will anchor extended hours with Sindy Mabe doing her first ever prime time election night coverage.

ANN7 is available on all DStv bouquets on channel 405, streamed live at ann7com