I Am South African Starts, Adds Avashnee Vandiar as Co Host, Causes ANN7 Lineup Tweak

The second season of ANN7's I Am South African started today, July 20th, at 6pm.

With the launch of I AM South African in the 6pm hour, GameOn! with Mahreen Chenia moves an hour earlier to 5:30pm, and its late night repeat also moves an hour earlier to 9:30pm, replacing the repeat of Buzz@ANN7.

With all the hype around the launch of I Am South African and that Maps Maponyane will be hosting, one thing ANN7 (seemingly conveniently) forgot to mention is that Maps would have a cohost on the show in Avashnee Vandiar. Avashnee is not a stranger to ANN7 viewers, having previously anchored the entertainment bulletin in Chantal Rutter Dros' version of ANN7 Prime and also having a role in a recent local movie.

ANN7 also added a new set just for the show (see above) which seems like someone's living room. Those unnecessarily big graphic are back as well (sighs).

Your Ultimate New Year's Eve TV Guide

Staying in this New Year's Eve? Well various television channel's will be producing specials, live and taped, to usher in the new year.

ANN7 (DStv 405)
ANN7, South Africa's youngest 24 hour news channel, also becomes South Africa's first 24 hour news channel to produce its own New Year's Eve special with a 1 hour live special, presented by entertainment correspondent Avashnee Vandiar,  from Buffalo Park East London at the inaugural Cowntdown Music Festival. It is unclear which stars will be performing on the  portion of the festival that will be broadcast.

SABC1
SABC1's annual Come Duze 2015 live broadcast originates from Durban this year. The show goes live at 9pm and features celebrities, musicians and actors, giving their New Year’s messages, best wishes, hopes and dreams spiced with 3 hours of the best of
Mzansi’s music videos.

SABC2
SABC 2 will be broadcasting their annual new Years Eve Special from 10pm. No further information has been made available

eTV
eTV will be broadcasting live from the Midmar Music Festival in Kwa-Zulu Natal from 10:30pm with Club 808's Nonhle Thema presenting the live coverage. She will be joined by Collen Zondo and Nontandakubukwa Tha Simelani.

International Broadcasters
Ring in The New Year around thw world with international news channels providing live coverage from their own home countries ringing in the year and also abbreviated coverage of other international NYE events.

CNNi (DStv 401)
My personal favourite, even if it means waking up extremely early, anchor of CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 (Tuesday through Saturday 3am), Anderson Cooper, is joined by his longtime friend and comedienne (and also new host of E!'s Fashion Police), Kathy Griffin, for the 8th year in a row live from Time Square in New York. Their live coverage includes crossings to stops around the US and around the world and kicks off from 4am CAT (With the countdown in that timezone culminating at 7am CAT). At 7:30am they hand over to Brooke Baldwin and Don Lemon who take viewers into the New Year in the US's Central Time Zone.

BBC World News (DStv 400)
BBC World News will be broadcasting their annual New Year Live, which will be covering the countdown and fireworks in London, where New Year's Day starts at 2am CAT. It will also feature performances from Adam Lambert and Queen


Sky News (DStv 402)
Will also be providing live coverage from London.

Other Broadcasters that will be airing special, but not live, broadcasts include:

• Mnet's annual broadcast of the Royal Variety Performance kicking off at 21:30pm (look out for performances by Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Trevor Noah)
• MTV (DStv 130) has massive music video wall from 21:20 pm
• BET (DStv 135) has Notarized, which is a countdown of the top 100 videos as voted by viewers and presented by many different guests. Airs throughout the day and into the night.
• Channel O (DStv 320) has Bassment throughout the day
• MTV Base (DStv 322) has a MVP Top 50 Tracks of 2014 special, as voted for by viewers.
• Trace Urban (DStv 325) also has their resident DJ ushering in the new year.

Avashnee Vandiar: Anchor, Actor

Avashnee Vandiar is ANN7's entertainment news editor, the entertainment anchor on ANN7 Prime and hosts East N Style on the channel on the weekends.

But between anchoring, reporting and presenting from on location, she still seems to find the time to be starring in movies.

Her latest movie, Curse of Highway Sheila, which premiered this past week has been getting positive reviews, and her performance as well.

It will be interesting to see how, if at all, she will cover the movie for her entertainment reporting on the channel.

Either way, it raises the profile of the channel if their entertainment anchor is also a famous local movie star.