Here's the latest news about TV that I read and that you should read too:
■ ESPN employees say racism continues behind-the-scenes at the TV sports channel.
ESPN admits it has a problem with diversity.
■ Globally autocrats are cracking down on digital news sites.
■ ABS-CBN, the top broadcaster in the Philippines, has its licence cancelled.
President Rodrigo Duterte can't cope with the criticism and decided it's "payback" time and to shut the broadcaster down.
■ Media and technology companies in identity crises.
Distribution and content companies are redefining themselves because the definition of distribution is changing with broadband-connected television. As a lot of companies are now trying to "control the living room", there are now 3 different tiers to content distribution, each relying on the layers below it.
■ Netflix removes gay character from its Ask 101 series in Turkey.
"The problem with that character was eliminated," says Turkey's Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) after the gay character of Osman was censored by the country and Netflix agreed.
■ Netlix's The Old Guard is decent enough but could have been so much more.
■ The SABC is a sad, abject bunch of creeps, not the vibrant broadcaster we need (subscription required).
■ Q&A with SABC board chairperson Bongumusa Makhathini about looming job cuts (subscription required).
■ Netflix expected to announce record subscriber growth when it reports latest subscriber numbers this week as it benefits from Covid-19 global lockdowns in many countries (subscription required).
- Data suggests fewer international cancellations because of Covid-19 will be what's boosting the overall subscriber number.
■ MultiChoice and Eutelsat abruptly dump 2 TV broadcasters in Ethiopia from DStv.
Tigrai TV and Dimtsi Woyane TV taken off DStv as the latest media censored by Ethiopian authorities.
■ Racist head writer of Tucker Carlson's show on FOX News (StarSat 261) is gone.
■ South Africa's Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhebane demands an apology from eNCA (DStv 403) and has lodged a complaint with the Broadcasting Complaints Commission of South Africa (BCCSA).
■ SABC staffers furious with the South African public broadcaster for revealing the identities of those who gave evidence in the commission of inquiry into editorial interference at the SABC.
■ The Pan African Congress (PAC) furious at the SABC for alleged "repeated bias and fake reporting".
The political party has laid a complaint at the Broadcasting Complaints Commission of South Africa (BCCSA).
■ Dorothy Ghettuba, Netflix's head of original African series, says the biggest challenges during the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdowns in Africa have been loadshedding, electricity blackouts and data which subscribers are struggling with.
■ Thandeka Gqubule-Mbeki, SABC economics editor, announces that she will be wearing black and embark on a hunger strike to protest against job cuts at the bloated SABC.
■ Coronavirus: From Nollywood to South Africa, CNN International looks at how Covid-19 has impacted Africa's TV and film industry with lockdowns and curfews and how they've been forced to try and adapt.
Is the industry going to run out of content?
■ Tanzania bans Kwanza TV.
Tanzania's draconian government that can't cope with free media shuts down local broadcaster for 11 months ... because of "unpatriotic" Instagram post.
■ The science-fiction TV series version of Aldous Huxley's 1932-novel Brave New World arrives in the future it predicted.
