Interestingly the title of Indentured: Behind the Scenes at Gupta TV, has remained exactly the same.
The book is now for sale at R185 and contains jaw-dropping revelations from Rajesh Sundaram about the shocking machinations behind the scenes at the controversial "Gupta news" channel that MultiChoice rushed on-air in 2013 and was an immediate disaster, and is now getting canning at the end of August from DStv.
The former ANN7 editor who fled ANN7 and then South Africa had, and has embarrassing stories about the tumultuous launch period of ANN7 which started in August 2013 under highly embarrassing circumstances, damaging the brands of Multichoice and ANN7.
In Indentured it Rajesh Sundaram lifts the lid on the highly embarrassing ANN7, and the alleged in-fighting and other operational scrambling which took place in the three months before ANN7 made its shocking on-air launch in 2013, and the time after.
Indentured: Behind the Scenes at Gupta TV was originally supposed to be published by Jacana by Christmas 2013.
At the time TVwithThinus said that "the book, if eventually published, would make for a compelling read, and provide must-read insights into a fascinating world where news, money, politics, egos and deadlines collided into a toxic cocktail of scandalous spectacle."
"Rarely has so much money been thrown into a new media and television in South Africa, involving the politically connected Gupta family, the world of news, news gathering and a new 24-hour TV news channel, with intense pressure and deadlines, a lack of skills and talent behind the scenes, and severe management problems culminating in scandal."
In June 2014, Jacana told TVwithThinus that it is no longer moving forward with Indentured, but didn't specify reasons.
It's very likely that legal reservations about the content was just too big at the time.
Now, after the avalanche of State Capture allegations linked to the controversial Gupta family, shocking #GuptaLeaks, incriminating emails and warrants of arrest for the Guptas and their associates, as well as highly damaging revelations of dubious payments and interactions between Naspers MultiChoice pay-TV business, ANN7 and the Guptas, the public tide has turned against the Guptas who are mired in scandals and widespread allegations of corruption.
This likely made Jacana willing - possibly even eager - to now revisit Indentured: Behind the Scenes at Gupta TV and its publication.
Indentured: Behind the Scenes at Gupta TV will definitely be a can't-put-it-down page turner for anyone working in television, and anyone interested in the TV biz and especially in the inner workings of TV news channels.
Rajesh Sundaram, who currently lives in Chennai, India, was a senior broadcast journalist from India who was headhunted to lead the team to set up ANN7. He however quickly discovered how then-president Jacob Zuma and his son Duduzuma was hellbent on creating ANN7 as a propaganda channel along with the Guptas on MultiChoice's DStv platform.
Rajesh Sundaram discovered that The Guptas and Jacob Zuma were "inextricably linked in a bid to create a propaganda tool that will not only advance a clear political agenda, but also position itself to loot state coffers of millions of rand".
