RATINGS: 2017 State of the Nation Address

The annual State of the Nation Address was delivered by President Zuma on Thursday, 9 February.

SABC2's broadcast, which aired from 17:55 to 22:10 averaged a healthy 2.599 million viewers over the four hours and fifteen minutes. This is above what the channel would normally have averaged in that time period had they aired a traditional prime time lineup.

Though the Address was carried live on etv as well, the Address did not make the cut for that channel's top 20 programmes for the month of February.

South Africa's most watched news channel, eNCA, provided wall to wall coverage on the day. This, coupled with the fact that eNCA and 'Annika Larsen' were trending on Twitter for all the wrong reasons led to that channel pulling a massive  371 151 viewership average from 6pm to 11pm. I cannot back this up, but I do suspect this might be eNCA's highest rated block of programming in the channel's nine-year history.

The State of the Nation Address was broadcast live on SABC2, etv, eNCA, SABC News Channel, ANN7, The Parliamentary Service, CNBC Africa and Islam TV. However, viewership is not publicly available for the smaller broadcasters due to them not making the top 30 broadcasts for DStv during the month.

SONA2017: Parliament releases accredited media list

With the 2017 State of the Nation Address approaching, parliament has released the list of accredited media to cover the event (which you can find in its entirety here.) The list provides a sort of indication as to what kind of coverage we can expect from broadcasters, both television and radio. Here are some observations:

SABC
The SABC will once again have the largest presence on the ground for the State of the Nation Address, with a whopping 196 personnel accredited to cover the event for both their tv and radio platforms (and in different languages as well). As always, one can expect a high quality all round broadcast from the SABC, but hopefully not like last year where they decided to provide excess coverage to fluff like the red carpet and not address the bigger issues present.

Strangely, prime time news anchor [English], Peter Ndoro, is not listed as accredited media, but is expected to anchor the traditional post-SONA The New Age Breakfast Briefing. Another big name not on the list is Chriselda Lewis.

Morning Live anchor, Leanne Manas, and prime time business anchor, Francis Herd, are the only anchors of high viewer timeslots that are accredited.
Accredited reporters include Vanessa Poonah (who has in the past provided excellent coverage of protests at parliament) and Krivani Pillay among an army of reporters.

eNCA
 eNCA will have a team of 96 personnel on the ground at the parliamentary precinct.
This will be eNCA's first State of theNation Address since they gutted their Cape Town operations, so traditional big names for Cape Town based coverage like Amy McIver and Andrew Barnes will no longer feature.
As always, News Night anchor, Iman Rappetti, will be there, Jeremy Maggs won't.

Reporters for the channel include Percival Young, Thulasizwe Simelane, Athi Mtongana, Annika Larsen, Lester Kiewit and basically all Cape Town-based reporters, including even the lifestyle reporter, Tanya Nefdt, among others
Another big name excluded is Justice Malala, who usually provides commentary. Longtime SONA commentator, Judith February, will be there.

ANN7
Though ANN7's team of 29 will be the smallest of the three big news broadcasters, they are sending all their big names to Cape Town.
This will be prime time anchor, Sindy Mabe's first time anchoring SONA coverage. Prime time business anchor, Clive Ramathibela Smith, is also listed. As Clive's expertise is not only used by ANN7 (he regularly appears on CNBC Africa and radio as well), it is a sort of coup for ANN7 to secure his services for the big night. Cape Town based reporter, Chelsea Lotz, will be working the event as well. Senior reporter, Keldon Ongmu, will also be providing coverage and analysis.

Other
CNBC Africa will once again have no one on the ground for the SONA address. This doesn't mean they do not cover the event. Instead, they opt to carry it live with a large in studio panel based in Johannesburg providing analysis.

Though five reporters have the 'Business Day' designation, no one carries the BDTV designation.

International broadcasters that will be there include Al Jazeera [international], ARD [Germany], the BBC (who has a rather large group of people accredited), Bloomberg [International], CCTV News [China], France24 [France], NHK [Japan], Sky News [UK] and all major news agencies.

Religious broadcasters
As has become the norm already, religious broadcasters with their own news divisions will once again be providing coverage of the Address. Islam TV (DStv 347), Loveworld News (free to air satellite, available online), Radio 786, Radio Islam, Radio Tygerberg and The Voice of the Cape are all religious broadcasters that will have an on the ground presence for the speech. Some of them actually will have more feet on the ground than big news organisations like News24.

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President Zuma delivers the State of the Nation Address on Thursday, 9 February.