As part of its Election Watch project, the IPPR is monitoring the coverage of the impending election on NBC television news and One Africa television news from October 30 to November 26 2009 – the day before polling takes place on November 27 and 28.

Highlights from the results for the week of November 6 to November 12:
  • Swapo increased its dominance of NBC coverage – up to 83 percent of all coverage devoted to political parties as compared to 82 percent in the previous week.
  • One Africa did not feature coverage of Swapo in the week under scrutiny, after giving the ruling party 50 percent of party-related coverage in the previous week.
  • The RDP was the most featured party on One Africa (50 percent of coverage) and the second most featured party on NBC (8 percent of coverage as compared to Swapo’s 83 percent).
  • NBC ranks the opposition as less newsworthy than Swapo.
  • Overall the NBC increased its election coverage from 66 minutes in the previous week to 94 minutes in the week under scrutiny. One Africa’s coverage went up from 20 minutes to 30 minutes.