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South Africa’s free and fair elections gave the country a much needed boost in international television news ratings. This is likely to lift coverage on Africa as a whole, particularly around issues of democracy, which have seen an increase of positive coverage in the last few months. Issues that contributed to a higher than before reporting included – other than coverage on Zuma and the ANC victory, was reporting on the IPL league as well as the World Cup 2010 progress. Media Tenor’s analysis of global opinion leading television news coverage shows that previously negative coverage on South Africa from 2006 to 2008 has been considerably boosted by the reporting on the free and fair elections. Even though the election results had only little coverage, this is not surprising considering the minimal attention Western networks devote to Africa in general. In April 2009, all analysed television networks had a less than 7% share of coverage on Africa. Of the 344 reports on Africa, just over 200 featured the pirates in Somalia, with South Africa being second in terms of coverage with just over 55 reports (until 26 April).
According to Wadim Schreiner, the Managing Director of Media Tenor in South Africa, South Africa’s latest media woes have started with the extensive power outages of Eskom in January 2008, with major mining companies warning of losses and retrenchments, causing concerns in by international commentators. The xenophobic violence in May continued this negative trend. Thirdly, South Africa’s stance towards Zimbabwe, combined with a perceived uncertainty around the political future of South Africa and concerns for the success of the 2010 World Cup is reflected in the less than favourable coverage South Africa enjoyed particularly on international networks. Lately however, 2010 progress received some coverage on television news and combined with a peaceful transition to a new government, it seems that international television news might even be willing to drop the attention to Jacob Zuma’s corruption allegations. It seems that foreign television networks have put their concerns about Jacob Zuma aside in the light of a convincing victory of the African National Congress during the national elections on 22 April. As with Obama, it is likely that media will review South Africa under the Presidency of Jacob Zuma again in 100 days time.

Media Analysed: in the United States (NBC and CBS), the UK (BBC and ITV), Germany (ARD, ZDF, RTL), France (TF1), Italy (Rai Uno), Switzerland (SF Tagesschau) and Spain (TVE 1 Telediario)