The SA Sports Awards 2011 live broadcast on SABC1 was a marred, scarred, badly produced tele-vent, shockingly showing exactly how far the South African public broadcaster have fallen when it comes to botching a live event broadcast for which the SABC no longer appears to have the skill, resources, know-how or capacity to do at least passing-level right.
If you use the word shocking it implies that something is unusual or wasn't expected (and by now shoddy broadcasting production values when its the SABC should be expected as de rigueur), but the SA Sports Awards 2011 broadcast live on SABC1 on Sunday night from the Sun City Superbowl was shockingly, atrociously bad. Looking at the broadcast very little seemed planned; very little seemed professional.
The SA Sports Awards 2011 that took place on an extremely amateur-looking green stage and with an audibly hollow podium platform, could have done with a rehearsal to start with. People struggled to read the teleprompter, clearly showing that they were reading what they had to read, for probably the first time. The minister of sport and recreation Fikile Mbalula seemed dazed and perplexed - he didn't know how to or perhaps haven't practised pronouncing names, and seemed completely flummoxed when he too couldn't read the teleprompter (or perhaps the words didn't scroll up fast enough). No wonder the seated crowd laughed at him.
The SA Sports Awards 2011 co-hosts Carol Manana and Colin Moss were either unprepared, completely out of their depth, or perhaps they just suffered the massive burden of the avalanche of the poorly executed production which even the best of hosts can't make up for. Their presentation came across as erratic, unpolished, angsty and very unprofessional - but who knows what went on behind the scenes and what they had to deal with.
The SA Sports Awards 2011 broadcast - back for the first time after an absence of two years - was done by SABC Sport with sponsors like SuperSport, MTN and SAA and was in my opinion as a TV critic a breathlessly bad production. The live show was marred by continuous sound and music problems, erratic cameras and shaking handicam shots, no on-screen naming titles, unprofessional breaks and no sound in several places throughout as well as sound disappearances. It all made for akward, highly uncomfortable television to have to watch. Neither Ernie Els who received a Steve Tshwete Lifetime Achievement Award, nor Hashim Amla who won the big, final award of Sports Star of the Year, were physically present to accept their awards.
The SA Sports Awards 2011 echoed the horrible ineptness and visual cringe-inducing amateurism of the unorganized and shambolic 17th Annual MTN SA Music Awards (Samas) - an event which was widely criticised in May. It's ironic that minister Fikile Mbalula said before the awards that it might just be as big as the Samas. Turns out the SA Sports Awards 2011 is not as big ... it's as bad.
The amateur TV spectacle that was horribly produced, was supposed to end at 22:00 but ran shockingly, unprofessionally far over time. It was only 38 minutes later at 22:38 that the SA Sports Awards finally ended - with no end credits.
No gold medal for this mess. The 2011 SA Sports Awards was an embarrassement to watch.
