SABC Financial Results Highlights

The SABC today released their annual financial statements. Here are a few of the major highlights:

• For the first time in history, the SABCS audience share is now below 50% (though 49% is not much lower). This is a result of increasingly competitive competition as viewers are continuing to subscribe to pay television providers or opt for free services like Openview HD.
• The SABC is continuing to grow healthily in the digital space (My only worry is that they are not monetising their growth in this space enough).
• The public broadcaster posted a net loss of R441 million for the financial period. The loss was attributed to poor performance from certain revenue streams, poor economic conditions, having to broadcast major events (which are costly to produce) and cut backs by advertisers.
• All of the SABC's radio stations are comfortably meeting the audience share quotas set for them by ICASA.
• When digital terrestrial television finally launches, it will launch will closed captioning (in South Africa called "subtitles") for a large portion of the SABC's content.
• The SABC spent R573 million on sports rights
• The SABC allocated R19.7 million worth of advertisements for Public Service Announcements, though no single campaign was allocated more than R1 million. 
• The SABC recognised R1.7 billion worth of imparment of programming. This is most likely due to the scrapping of a large amount of foreign content when the local content quotas it imposed on itself were increased. 

SABC News Highlights

• The average weekly viewership of viewers aged 15+ stands at 1 050 711, making it the least watched of the SABC's 5 channels. For comparison, the SABC's other DStv-exclusive channel, SABC Encore, averaged slightly more than 1.4 million viewers in the same demographic. (Another interesting thing I found was that SABC2's footprint, contrary to popular belief, is actually larger than SABC1's.)
• The audience share of all local language bulletins increased for the period. 
• The only complaint that SABC News received that was upheld and they had to apologise for was that a presenter referred to Native Americans as 'red Indians.' Seriously. 
• What does the SABC pay for its news productions? R876 million. The division is not profitable. All other local news channels are profitable, but they do not have as extensive coverage as the SABC

You can read the financial statements in full at:  http://www.sabc.co.za/wps/portal/SABC/SABCDOCSREPORTS

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

The SABC bans the reading of newspaper headlines on the air

Yet another sweeping change affecting the SABC has been announced earlier today with COO, Hlaudi Motsoeneng, announcing that the broadcaster will no longer be reading newspaper headlines on the air, on tv or radio.

The reason? Apparently reading newspaper headlines, which is a practice done by many news broadcasters around the world, gives the newspapers free advertising and if the newspapers want exposure on the SABC, they will have to pay for it.

The problem is that many programs like Morning Live on SABC2 have the daily reading of the newspaper headlines on air to give viewers a sense of what is happening in the country and around the world from different editorial perspectives.

Worse than that, the SABC has a weekly media news show, Media Monitor, on the SABC News Channel whose entire objective it is to report on what the press at large are reporting and how they are doing it. How do you report what was reported at a newspaper if you, well, can't say what was reported. Will make for some interesting, and probably cringe worthy, viewing this coming Sunday.

The move has since been met with uproar, with the Democratic Alliance calling it yet another move to protect the ANC.

News and Actuality Programming Shifts as SABC Shuffles Schedule Across the Board

This past Tuesday (2nd February) the SABC announced across the board changes to the schedule of the free to air channels, [you know the name of those channels. I'm not writing them out].

Sotho/Tswana/Sepedi News moves from 7:30pm to 6:00pm 

The news bulletin that has a greater audience loses its timeslot for some reason, moving into the 6:00pm timeslot, a timeslot previously occupied by non-fiction fare that have typically not moved the ratings needle much (read: virtual tv deadzone).

Remember not too long ago this bulletin was shifted from 8:30pm to an hour earlier as the SABC stated viewers do not like waiting too late for their news. Problem is, will viewers be home in time for this bulletin.

Interesting to note that this is the same timeslot etv had its Sotho news bulletin in before it got cancelled due to the channel needing to slot in a third soap opera.

Sense Prevails: Fokus moves out of 7pm slot to 6:30pm slot. Also shifts from SABC3 to SABC2

Close you eyes and picture the person watching the Afrikaans news. Now close your eyes and picture someone watching the Afrikaans actuality program, Fokus. Did you picture the same person? Well, guess what? Both programs have been airing simultaneously on two different channels, forcing viewers with the exact same demographic profile to choose between the two. 

Well now Fokus will be the lead-in for the Afrikaans news and both shows' viewerships will be better because of it. 

Mzansi Insider moves an hour later

SABC1's weekend breakfast show, Mzansi Insider moves an hour later to 10am [shifting the Generations omnibus to 11am.]. The show also adds a new co host, Rorisang Thadekiso.

 Leihlo La Setshaba moves to 8:30pm on Thursday nights

SABC3 Adds Block of Documentaries and Current Affairs

Interface jumps from SABC 2 to SABC3 (essentially a swap with Fokus) and moves to an earlier 7pm slot on Sunday evenings.

This is only the start of what is the channel's new current affairs block which includes Special Assignment after Interface and then international documentary fare, like Ross Kemp, after that. 

[In other words,  the English news starts a 3 hour block of current affairs programming on the channel]

Time for the News Channels To Get Starsat?

There once was a time when all one needed for sports in South Africa was Supersport. If Supersport did not have it, it did not exist.

However, now Starsat's sports offering, made up of a pair of Fox Sports Channels and StarTimes Sports, is starting to slowly eat away at Supersport's sports rights, meaning only the approximately 100 000 Starsat subscribers have access to sports events like the Women's World Cup, the under 20 World Cup and, from next season, the Bundesliga, among others.

However, not only do most viewers not have access to Starsat, but it doesn't seem as if the South African news channels, eNCA, SABC News Channel and ANN7, have Starsat either. Instead the only highlights they will show are highlights of matches that aired on Supersport or the SABC's sports offering.

The result? When the sports bulletin now comes on on these channels, any sports that airs on Starsat is now treated as merely being an after thought.

A prime example of this would be the Women's World Cup. Back in 2011 when the tournament aired on Supersport (with select matches on SABC1), the tournament was treated as any other part of the sports bulletin getting the full highlights package treatment.

This time around, Supersport ditched the Women's World Cup and the Under 20 World Cup in favour of showing the Copa America and the Women's World Cup has merely become an afterthought in the sports bulletin, usually lucky if the scores are mentioned.

Another major sporting event that is currently taking place that is not being aired on Supersport is the inaugural European Games being held in Baku. However, neither ANN7, eNCA or SABC News will be reporting on that (and neither will 24 hour sports news channel, Supersprt Blitz) because it is being aired on Fox Sports and not Supersport. 

Though it may seem like something small that sporting events shown on Fox Sports Africa and StarTimes Sports is being ignored by the 'mainstream' South African news channels, it is just a matter of time before one of these two broadcasters nab a major South African sporting event and that event could really suffer if the news channels and the rest of the media in South Africa are going to continue to nearly ignore any sports that does not air on either Supersport or the SABC. 

SABC 3 Announces Cricket World Cup Plans

SABC 3, the public broadcaster's cricket channel of choice, has announced their Cricket World Cup plans, well they kind of did considering it excludes the names of hosts and commentators.

The free to air broadcaster will provide live coverage of thirty matches, including all of the Proteas' matches, the opening match, two quarterfinals, one semi final and the final.

On cricket days, the channel's breakfast show, Expresso, will not be aired, along with other midmorning repeats.

Ocassionally, the business-centric News@1 and Africa News Update will also be set aside for cricket action, though they will still be broadcast on The SABC News Channel.

For once, the channel's late afternoon and prime time schedules will not be affected by the cricket.

I will update this post when more specifics become available.

Chriselda Lewis Appears in Generations

With the whole country waiting in antiscipation to see what the new Generations will look like, a tv newser made a short cameo in the opening few minutes of the episode.

The SABC's star reporter, Chriselda Lewis (who I must say still drives a bit of traffic to this site considering the amount of people directed here looking for picutres of her), somehow found time in her schedule to make the brief appearancde on South Africa's most watched tv show, setting the scene for what viewers were seeing.

Even an SABC Outside Broadcasting van appeared in the background in the scene to ensure that it seemed more authentic.

In the US, reporters' credibility is questioned when they appear in scripted shows doing their real life job, but luckily South Africans don't hat themselves that serious yet. Reviews for the reporter, who is quite the tweeter, are largely positive.

On a somewhat related, and expected note, #GenerationsLegacy is the number one trending topic on twitter in SA at the moment (Monday evening, December 1st), with show creator Mfundi Vundla not far below.

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.

Your Ultimate 2014 FIFA World Cup Coverage Guide (SABC 1)

SABC 1 left it to the eleventh hour to to announce its world cup broadcast plans for the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil, announcing details on a very lighthearted edition of its Sport@10 chat show, hosted by Thomas Mlambo.

Below is a list of their announced magazine shows:

Good Morning Brazil
When: Every Day at 6am (1 hour)
Hosted from a purpose built set at the SABC's Auckland Park studios, this show will give the early risers a recap of the prior night's action as well as previewing that days action. The show, with the name of a Brazillian breakfast show even though it is hosted by South Africans, from South Africa, to South Africans, is obviously modeled around SABC1's 2010 World Cup show Good Morning Mzansi, which was hosted by the then Carol Manana (now Tshabalala) and comedian Trevor Noah.

It is to be hosted by the winner of SABC Sport's Presenter search, Xoli Zondo, self proclaimed football lover Lerato Kganyago (Presenter of entertainment and Lifestyle show The Link on SABC 1), along with Andile Ncube, who is apparently supposed to keep things football focused, even though his own background is in shows like Live Amp. When Lerato says she loves football very much, she means she loves many things about it: Neymar, Messi, Spain, Germany Argentina Brazil, along with having "faith" in Nigeria. Xoli stated in their interview with Mlambo that she will be waking up at 2am every day, and by every day she means 32 days straight as she is planning on being on the show each and every day. Thomas also stated he will wake up to hashtag along with them at #GoodmorningBrazil

Lets Talk Brazil
When: Every Evening When there is Now World Cup Action(1 Hour) 
This talk show co-hosted by Thomas Mlambo and Minnie Dlamini will be broadcast every day when there is no matches scheduled. The two say they will analyse the ins and outs of soccer, with Mini stating that this will be a “Real” talk show analysing what is going down, what is fact and what is not. The show is said to not at all be a lifestyle shows, like the others areThey also spoke about Minnie's now one year tenure of being part of SABC Sport and what it was like.
They emphasised that Minnie will be an 'equal' co host with Thomas sitting right beside him, and not in the smaller role she plays on Soccer Zone.

 Kasi to Favelas
When: off days as well
Hosted by Maps Moponyane and Pearl Modiade, this lifestyle show will get viewers behind the action: the culture, the food and the atmosphere of Brazil straight from the Favelas of Brazil to the townships of eKasi. It will showcase things like superfans, though it is meant more for casual viewers, as Pearl herself confirmed that she is not a great fan of soccer but will hopefully grow. Thomas then asked her to identify a player onscreen, Dzeko, and she cound not identify him, instead thinking it is Shinji Kagawa, a Japanese footballer. The next person in the little game was Kagawa but Pearl yet again got this wrong, so the guys helped her get it right, making it seem as if she was 'mixing up her research.' Lets blame this on the lack of foreign football leagues on the state broadcaster because having a host that herself confessed to not beeing a big fan of the show is really something.

Build-Up, Half time and Post Match
The SABC Sport Studio was slightly expanded for the world cup to include a seperate area with a couch and soft seating, though the expansion is rather disappointing.

The star or their coverage will be current, yet already axed, Bafana Bafana head coach Gordon Igesund, which is not bad but is a considerable downgrade from Pele last time around. They failed to reveal any other analysts as part of the special reveal episode of Sport@10.

Their main coverage will be anchored by Tshepo Mabona, Thomas Mlambo and Lebo Motsoeli, who was heavily hyped on the show this evening as being the first ever female anchor of a world cup in South African history, which I wanted to say was incorrect as Carol Tshabalala must have anchored before, but unfortunately she did not ever anchor a World Cup game, despite being billed as "South Africa's First Lady of Sport). Considering both these women are playing a relatively large role in their respective broadcasters' plans, SABC Sport and Supersport, respectively, it could actually turn out to a race to see exactly who gets the honour of being the first woman in South African history to anchor a World Cup Match.

Overall, though the SABC's coverage plans seem disappointing, considering the effort Supersport is putting i.

Side note: Sport@10 takes a hiatus for the full duration of the World Cup.