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.

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

COVERAGE REVIEW: News Channels Cover Jacob Zuma's State of the Nation Address

eNCA (simulcast on eTV), ANN7, SABC News(simulcast on SABC 2), along with CNBC Africa and Parliamentary Service all covered President Jacob Zuma's State of the Nation Address live on 17 June 2014

As expected, all news channels carried Jacob Zuma's SONA address live on Tuesday, June 17th.

ANN7

The biggest disappointment of the coverage must have been ANN7. After covering the previous SONA address and elections so well, their coverage this time around really took one step back.

Because the channel ran a two hour block of non-news from 2:30pm all the way to 5pm, the channel chose to air a general news bulletin in the 5pm slot whilst the other channels all started building up to the event. Their build up then started at 5:30pm with the usual anchor hosting Ricky Naidoo, their political editor, from their studios.

ANN7's Political Aditor, Ricky  Naidoo

At 6pm, prime time anchor Chantal Rutter dros took over with her panel in the studio, and together they all just seemed to over analyse the situation and did not seem to cover the event itself decently, instead opting to just continue an in studio debate while adding a few live shots for good measure.
 Senior political correspondent Hajra Omarjee was on the ground at parliament, but in the hour before the actual speech, they did not even have a satellite (or broadband, considering the channel doesn't mind poor picture quality for on location shots) with her, instead having to have had her phone in, with the phone even losing connection at times. They really dropped the ball on this one as she should have been anchoring from Cape Town like last time around.

Considering the amount of time this channel spends on political news, I must say it is rather odd that they continue to use the Parliamentary Service, a channel all DStv subscribers have access to, as their in parliament coverage and do not receive the 'clean' feed that other channels have, so you will see the logos of the parliamentary service on ANN7, all adding to an overall messy on air presenation considering the different graphic packages.

A more beautiful picture of Cantal Rutter Dros than this I have never seen

They were, however, the last channel to still be covering the event for a few minutes after 9pm, after all other channels have ceased their broadcasts something which they should be commended for. In the 24 hour news business, a channel has 24 hours a day to fill with news, so the longer you can keep live coverage going the better.

eNCA

eNCA's coverage was anchored by Iman Rappetti live from parliament. She was yet again joined by the guys from Power FM, this time Ursula Chhikane and Tim Modise. Andrew Barnes co-anchored News Day from 1pm-4pm live from Parliament as well.

Ursula Chikane of Power FM and Top Billing covered the Red Carpet as part of eNCA's coverage of the second State of the Nation Address of 2014

Ursula provided coverage from the red carpet, something which I must say was a welcomed addition considering usually its a journo that performs this duty yet now they had someone from the glam scene as Ursula is also a Top Billing presenter. Being a Top Billing presenter added a sense of credibility to her contributions to the overall coverage, even though the high quality of her inserts speak for themselves.

Tim Modise speaking to a listener during a Power FM live crossing as part of eNCA's State of the Nation Address coverage

I am personally not a fan of the Power FM inserts. Quite frankly I dislike it.When it comes to covering live events, the best thing to do is to cover it as best you can. Now these inserts not only stops coverage of the events nearly completely, it breaks the rhythm of the broadcast every time Iman crosses over to the radio station, taking about a minute to do the whole hand over, Tim Modise to welcome viewers back (and remind them they can tune in on Power FM), and to tell them to call in as well. This process is repeated every time they hand over to the radio station. Often the listener who called in is not providing opinion that deserves to be aired on a national platform either and just drags the whole thing out, forcing viewers like myself to just easily flip up to the next channel/s as I know I wont be missing much on eNCA.

Iman hosted two analysts in their little studio at Parliament, this time not over analysing things as much as they did in the past. I really dislike the trend on  South African broadcasting of having those large vertical banners on their set seen behind the analysists with the channel logo on. It seems extremely amateur hour as viewers can see which channel they viewing from the onscreen graphics of they could have had a monitor onscreen. Instead, they opt to narrow viewers' view of the happenings outside the window behind the analysts.

eTV's coverage, which started at 7pm had onscreen sign language interpreter on the right side of the screen. The picture on eTV was terrible. Not only was the picture letterboxed with black bars at the top and bottom of the screen, it was pillarboxed as well with black bars on either side of the screen, so the whole picture onscreen had a terrible box all around the picture.

While the other channels provided non stop rolling coverage of the events, eNCA found it okay to take a great load of ad breaks during their coverage, exculding the speech itself, vital time that could have been used to provide coverage. This included parts of the coverage not seen on eTT, so they were not forced to take so many ad breaks. At 8:24 pm, they found it in themselves to take a SIX MINUTE ad break and another four minute one at the top of the next hour, time the other channels used for live coverage.

SABC News
By far the channel with the best coverage of the event, SABC News' coverage was anchored by Vuyo Mvoku and Leanne Manas live from their studio at Parliament.

Leanne Manas and Vuyo Mvoku anchored SABC News' (simulcast on SABC 2) coverage of the State of the Ntaion Address

They got the mix right of keeping analysis to a minimal and live rolling commentary to a maximum right. Most of the time during the build up, the anchors' and guests' voices were just heard and not seen as they opted to keep pictures focussed on what was happening an explained to viewers what was going on and what they were seeing, along with naming people as they came in case viewers might not have known who they were. They had more reporters on the ground than any other news channel as well.

For some or another reason, SABC News had their camera on eNCA's Ursula as she interviewed Mmusi Maimane for quite a while

After the speech, they got response from all the major opposition parties before interviewing ANC members, something that has to be admired from the apparent voicepiece of the ANC.

Programming Note: All Local News Channels to Cover Jacob Zuma's State of the Nation Address

As expected, ANN7, eNCA, SABC News, Parliamentary Service and CNBC Africa will all be carrying Jacob Zuma's State of the Nation Address live tonight at 7pm.

Build up starts before then with eNCA's coverage anchored from Cape Town by Iman Rappetti and Ursula from Top Billing on the Red Carpet, along with live crossings to Power FM as they listen to call ins from various listeners.

SABC News has Leanne Manas and Vuyo Mvoku anchoring from their Parliamentary studios in Cape Town.

ANN7 has Hajra Omarjee on the scene, along with other reporters, though they will not be as in depth as before.

Uncut coverage will, as always, be provided on the Parliamentary Service, DStv 408, if you okay with below par picture and sound quality.

CNBC Africa will be providing live coverage from 7pm-9pm..

Ann7, SABC News and eNCA are all streaming coverage live on their websites, or Youtube channels

REVIEW: All News Channels Carry Jacob Zuma's Second Inauguration

ANN7, eNCA and SABC News (simulcast on SABC 2) all carried rolling coverage of South African President, Jacob Zuma's, second inauguration. This is a review across all three  broadcasters.
Firstly, I have been watching live news coverage for many years, and this is the first time I have ever noticed something happening across all three channels: The broadcast and its quality and content totally transformed at 9am. Watching the 6am-9am coverage, I was already planning what I will be writing in the review, but then at 9am, all three news channels switched anchors, reporters, styles, and even program names. The 6am-9am slots are totally different from the 9am-1pm slots in nature. This is in contrast to previous events that had rolling coverage (elections, funerals, etc) where the broadcasters would traditionally aim for as much consistency as possible across the full event and its coverage.

The rest of the review will therefore review the events as two events:
6am-9am

Leanne Manas

On SABC News, the Morning Live team that usually does the show in the week did this special weekend edition of the show. Leanne Manas anchored the broadcast along with Ayanda-Allie Paine, who returned today from study leave. These two really put up an authentically great, feel good  broadcast, undoubtedly the most positive of all broadcasts at the time. Yes, you could argue the SABC is the "mouthpiece" of the ANC, but what made this broadcast truly exceptional was that they took the event for exactly what it was: an inauguration. As such, they were totally void of the over analysis that plagued eNCA and just enjoyed the event, broadcasting directly from the Union Buildings covering the event from all angles, including speaking to pilots that would be part of the fly over, spoke about fashion, a bit of background, speaking to everyday citizens and discussing the guests as they arrived. As they controlled the "official" feed of the event, they had the greatest degree of seamlessness between the show and the feed that was made available to all channels, which ultimately contributed to an overall great broadcast. They also aired an exceptional piece by Ayanda-Allie Paine interviewing the man of the hour himself, Jacob Zuma, over a game of chess in what I must say is the most revealing interview I have ever seen about Jacob Zuma the man.

ANN7 also provided what seems to be developing into the channels reputation these days: none stop, rolling and exceptional coverage of live political events. Today was also the first time I actually enjoyed the channels often annoying use of way too much boxes on screen at the same time: it allowed you to see as many views of the event at the same time. They had what seemed to be the perfect  balance between analysing Jacob Zuma's task ahead and the event itself, along with reports stationed seemingly everywhere around the Union Buildings.

eNCA was a total opposite of the above. Instead of enjoying, and covering the event, the channel did what is seeming to become standard for the channel: just critiquing Zuma along with one single analyst in their studio. The same type of critiquing could be kept for any other day, but they had to put it on today. Uveka Rangappa, who had taken Friday off, anchored the show from their studio, seeming to keep live crossings to a minimum in a broadcast that was really nothing special. At a later stage of the broadcast, they did put the "official" feed on the screen in the studio, but it was too small to really enjoy what was happening. They also took more ad breaks than any other channel.
Watching eNCA's coverage and comparing it to the other two channels made me feel sorry for myself. This is had this inauguration been exactly one year earlier, this channel would have been the only news channel in the country and this flimsy coverage they provided really would not have been able to give the event the coverage it desired as we were just constantly subjected to talking heads none stop while there were other things that could have been talked about instead of the things that they spoke about that, though was relevant, had nearly nothing to do with the event. This really makes me think about which events were covered like this in the past when they were the only channel available.

9am-1pm

Peter Ndoro anchored coverage from the studio

Graphics used for this event was just one of the other graphic packages used in recent months

Vuyo Mvoko anchored coverage from the union Buildings

At just before 9am Leanne Manas handed over to the next anchor on SABC News in quite a creative way, interview him first as if he were any other guess and at some point Vuyo Mvoko just doesn't stop talking and Leanne is gone (along with the graphics quietly being changed) to reflect that Morning Live was no longer on air (this was the only show that used its own brand identity on air). Prime time news reader Peter Ndoro anchored from the studio, though only for very short moments. It was overall a good broadcast, though nothing particularly spectacular and lacking the energy seen in the three hours before it. I was disappointed that their coverage ended promptly at 1pm. As a state broadcatser, one would expect them to go above and beyond to broadcast official state events, but ironically they were the first broadcaster to stop covering the event. Their near total lack of ad breaks was something to be appreciated.

At 9am Vuka Africa anchor Peter van Onselen tooka over duties on ANN7 live from the studio. He was joined by countless reporters at the Union Buildings. He had one guest in studio whom he consulted with, though unlike eNCA, was not the focus, but rather a means to fill "dead" time, which there was very little of considering how much they had to talk about the various African leaders that were arriving. Senior Political Reporter, Hajra Omarjee, once again became a sort of a second anchor live from the Union Buildings with her guests there. I really enjoyed how they allowed the actual event to be the star, having the reporters and anchors only in smll boxes, never cutting away from the official feed. Their vision mixing was exceptional between various camera angles and split screens to ensure you get to see it all, along with stock footage of the likes of Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki's inaugurations. At 1pm there a quick recap of other news before returning to the concert on the Southern lawns, usually listening to one song on stage followed by one news item, though very rarely leaving the feed from the concert. Their exceptional coverage was spoilt when they opted to go to taped programming at 1:30pm instead of staying with events.

Amazing pic from Iman's Twitter

eNCA carried the concert in between reports and ad breaks (which were plenty)

Jeremy Maggs with his often quirky in studio panel

The concert was broadcasted untouched on enca.com

eNCA improved the most from 9am. Jeremy Maggs took over in studio with Iman Rappetti with analysts Justice Malala and Chris Maroleng (who, now that I think about it, contributed very little to election coverage considering what a great journo he is). This team was really great, balancing lighthearted banter with analysis with substance. Iman also pushed the two out for an interview of famous singers like Donald in what was a rather good interview that focussed on the youth, not forgetting a joke on Jeremy Maggs' taste in music, as has become standard with the two on News Night. Overall, it was better coverage than the three hours before, thought hey still had periods of in studio coverage that was just too long, including what was a really good interview on the architecture of the Union Buildings. Their coverage also simulcast on eTV from 11am-1pm, though their actual coverage went well beyond that with a balance of the concert, a few good inserts about the likes of the flag and Nelson Mandela, and also what seems like just too many ad breaks. They also had Cathy Mohlanhlana and Gareth Edwards on the South lawns, where it was just odd seeing Cathy switching between being a reporter and then all of a sudden an ancho