M-Net and MultiChoice's Africa Magic Viewers Choice Awards has not been cancelled as the trashy Nigerian press erroneously reported, with M-Net telling TVwithThinus that the annual pan-African award show celebrating the continent's film and television as well as its producers and stars is going ahead and has deliberately been moved to the latter part of this year to unclutter the event television schedule.
The Africa Magic Viewers Choice Awards has been taking place for the past 5 years during March in Lagos, Nigeria.
The lack of a call for entries, and the absence of a broadcasting date of the live awards show for the 6th Africa Magic Viewers Choice Awards for 2018, led to Nigerian media doing erroneous trash-reporting about the AMVCA's alleged demise.
Part of the breathless so-called Nigerian "reporting" was that M-Net and MultiChoice scrapped the Africa Magic Viewers Choice Awards due to "a lack of funds".
Not so.
"As you are aware, the Africa Magic Viewers Choice Awards typically happen in March every year," Efosa Aiyevbomwan, Africa Magic's head of publicity tells me in response to a media enquiry.
"However, given the highly anticipated return of Big Brother Naija this January and the FIFA World Cup in June, both of which would clash with the planning, execution and broadcast of the Africa Magic Viewers Choice Awards, a decision has been taken to move the awards to the latter part of 2018."
"We will communicate exact timelines in due course," says Efosa Aiyevbomwan.
M-Net's successful Mzansi Magic Viewers Choice Awards for South Africa that was launched last year and that took place in August 2017 will likely return, as will the Royalty Soapie Awards set for 17 March after a two year absence.
Also hopefully coming back this year after they were both scrapped for 2017 and didn't take place - but not definitely confirmed yet - are Viacom International Media Networks Africa's (VIMN Africa) MTV Africa Music Awards and Turner Broadcasting and MultiChoice's CNN MultiChoice African Journalist Awards.
