M-Net adds new Nigerian weekday telenovela, Battleground, to Africa Magic Showcase on DStv revolving around the Bhadmus family.

M-Net has added a new Nigerian weekday telenovela to DStv with Battleground that kicked off on Monday 1 May at 21:00 on Africa Magic Showcase (DStv 151) revolving around the extended Bhadmus family and its troubles with power, money and fame.

Battleground follows the success of Africa Magic's recently concluded telenovela Hush and the launch of new shows like the sitcom My Flatmates and the telenovela Jemeji.

Produced for M-Net by the Nigerian filmmaker and Tinsel producer Femi Odugbemi, Battleground revolves around patriarch Chief Kolade Bhadmus and his family and their entangled personal, family and business dealings.

The Battleground cast includes Nollywood veterans Joke Silva, Yinka Davies, Gbenga Titiloye and Francis Onwuchei. 

Other actors are Shaffy Bello, Ozzy Agu, Okey Uzoeshi, Ini Dima-Okojie and Hauwa Allahbura, with The Voice Nigeria finalists Chike Osebuka and Nonso Bassey also making appearances.

"Battleground is an exciting new telenovela that shows how the combination of love, lust, greed and power ultimately results in a powerful story with different, ripple effects for everyone involved," says Wangi Mba-Uzoukwu, M-Net West Africa director.

"Battleground is yet again another example of Africa Magic's continued investment in the African film and television industry. The show features an emsemble cast that mixes established Nollywood actors and new, up-and-coming faces in the industry. I urge viewers to tune in and catch this amazing show."

MultiChoice terminating M-Net's under-performing AfricaMagic Showcase channel on DStv from the end of February after 15 months.

MultiChoice is removing M-Net's under-performing AfricaMagic Showcase (DStv 150) channel from DStv Premium in South Africa, terminating the channel from the end of February.

AfricaMagic Showcase was previously AfricaMagic Entertainment until it abruptly changed with no warning or announcement in September 2014.

As a "relaunched" channel, AfricaMagic Showcase - packed and supplied by M-Net to MultiChoice - survived only a year and 5 months on DStv Premium, the only DStv package it was available on in South Africa.

Asked why AfricaMagic Showcase is being terminated, MultiChoice, in response to a media enquiry, tells TV with Thinus that the M-Net supplied channel wasn't popular enough with viewers.

"We constantly review our DStv packages to make sure our customers are getting the very best in entertainment. Our research has shown that AfricaMagic Showcase hasn't been performing well, so while we don't often remove a channel, it's the right decision to make".

It's not immediately clear whether AfricaMagic Showcase is being shut down for the entire Africa, or whether MultiChoice is just taking away the channel for DStv Premium subscribers in South Africa.

AfricaMagic Showcase will continue as a TV channel on MultiChoice's DStv in other African countries, outside of South Africa.

M-Net tells me that "AfricaMagic Showcase will nonetheless remain as one of the top performing channels for other viewers across the rest of Africa on DStv channel 151".

MultiChoice says DStv Premium subscribers can still get AfricaMagic Showcase content but admits that subscribers will now have to wait longer to see some of it before it gets broadcast on the AfricaMagic Urban (DStv 153) channel.

MultiChoice says DStv Premium subscribers "can still get the best of local content on our other AfricaMagic channels, as well as on Mzansi and VUZU" - meaning the Mzansi Magic (DStv 161) and other Mzansi Magic channels.

"Many of the shows and movies that were available on AfricaMagic Showcase (such as Tinsel, Jara and Stargist) can be found on AfricaMagic Urban. Please note that if you were watching content on AfricaMagic Showcase, that content might only appear later on AfricaMagic Urban," says MultiChoice.

REVIEW. M-Net's 3rd AfricaMagic Viewers Choice Awards on DStv a badly produced continental disservice to African viewers.

M-Net's 3rd AfricaMagic Viewers Choice Awards 2015 which was broadcast live on Saturday evening on AfricaMagic Showcase (DStv 150) on MultiChoice's DStv across Africa with multiple mistakes and horrific production values, once again did a disastrous disservice to viewers forced to watch this mediocre mess.

The sad part is that M-Net, the sponsors and everyone from the TV establishment think this is just great, patting each other on the back over a wonderful AfricaMagic Viewers Choice Awards 2015 as if nothing is wrong and everything just amazing - not forced to actually watch the disaster they keep dishing up.

The irony is that something like the AfricaMagic Viewers Choice Awards 2015 is made and produced to be watched. It's a televised event. Its event TV.

Yet watching it on Saturday on DStv, broadcast from the Eko Hotel and Convention Centre in Lagos, Nigeria, once again gave this TV critic the distinct feeling that making it for viewers - and making it look and be great for viewers - is apparently the very last and lowest priority for everyone involved in this trashy TV exercise supposed to showcase how wonderful African film and TV is.

If you see this - which viewers saw again on Saturday night - by now you know you're watching the AfricaMagic Viewers Choice Awards.

When you see black screen you now know you're watching the AfricaMagic Viewers Choice Awards on DStv. What a shame.

For the third time in a row this utter TV mess struggled with terrible sound, shaky, erratic and extremely shoddy camerawork, numerous production problems, bad - very bad - presenters, horrible live editing, jaw-droppingly bad camera-angles and insane cutting from camera to camera.

The sound right through at the AfricaMagic Viewers Choice Awards was bad throughout. Don't blame the satellite. It was bad microphones, bad sound editing, bad producing and producers who don't know when to cut and when to start it - as well as terrible camerawork and play-out.

Add black screen, jarring camera pulling, jerking scenery, jumpy panning and Africa viewers got what we seemingly deserve: second-hand badness because we apparently don't know or demand any better from our television.

How embarrassingly bad was it when eventually comedian Basketmouth walked out on stage - not only with his handheld mic dead while he's talking, but the background music playing, and the music not being cut.

Basketmouth blatantly called out the AfricaMagic Viewers Choice Awards producers: "Is this sound supposed to be playing?"

More embarrassing mistakes followed at the end of his skit when he said "the camera will go off me now" - which didn't. And then commercials started. With MTN's ad having no sound.

Watch it if you've recorded it, and cringe for the low quality representation of African awards show television being beamed by MultiChoice across the continent.

I don't know what happened with the stage. It was dirty. Nobody bothered to clean it up.

Usually production assistants on any live production sweep in during ad breaks to fix and clean whatever. I've seen several top class directors, floor managers and producers over the years on otehr shows and live TV productions pick up small things because their shows matter to them on a personal level, and because they're hands-on - irrespective of their titles.

Not at the AfricaMagic Viewers Choice Awards. Here the trash stays on the stage.

The dirty stage, littered with black unknown bits - probably black feathers but looking like discarded pieces of black plastic - was clearly too much and too difficult a thing to pick up by anyone sometime during the two hour show.

Imagine the Oscars or Golden Globes audience being berated and admonished several times on live TV to "please clap" - while the camera zoomed in for close-up shots of audience members chewing gum.

It happened Saturday at the AfricaMagic Viewers Choice Awards. Apparently the more tacky, the more suitable to be televised.

Again there were lots and lots of empty seats with M-Net's AfricaMagic Viewers Choice Awards constantly, monotonously, panning from the right over the almost empty hall and panning over row upon row of empty seats. Again and again.

If you have empty seats, how difficult is it to not show it?

You at least want to create the perception with the viewer that what the viewer is watching and is being asked to give time to, is actually popular.

And why are so many people walking around, milling about, having their walking heads in shots as passers-by? Filming a flea market? It looked so.

The first winner of the 3rd AfricaMagic Viewers Choice Awards - a live televised award show - didn't bother to show up.

"Pat Nebo is somewhere around. He's not in the venue right now," said a writer who rushed to stage to accept the first award on behalf of no-show Pat Nebo for best art director.

The second winner of the evening - Georgia Arnold for Shuga as Best TV series - also couldn't be bothered to show up with another unknown person accepting on her behalf.

How does M-Net and the AfricaMagic Viewers Choice Awards want viewers to tune in and stick around when its starts off with the people who viewers presumably tune in for - the stars and the winners - who are not there?

MultiChoice's DStv electronic programme guide (EPG) was again, for the third year in a row, completely out of whack and unreliable.

Anyone wanting to record the AfricaMagic Viewers Choice Awards or the red carpet pre-show using their DStv decoder would not get the whole complete show - with completely wrong scheduled times.

It's unacceptable and yet its the third time that it happened. It gives the feeling that very little care and attention goes into the overall "event" with little coherent integration on any level.

Why do a live awards show if the capacity and professional calibre of people don't exist and are not in place to pull it off successfully?

There were some great one-liners at the 3rd AfricaMagic Viewers Choice Awards like when Sacred Lola Maja won for best make-up artist and started her acceptance speech with: "Wow. So glad I wore my waterproof mascara."

The winner of Best new media online video, Imoh Umoren was dressed in white and black and said: "Someone told me Africans don't like black and white silent films."

Perhaps the AfricaMagic Viewers Choice Awards should go back to the drawing board and start out in black and white. With no sound. And then take it slowly and rebuild this continental embarrassment from there.

Contestants, viewers, on cloud 9 as the 9th season of Big Brother Africa, Hotshots finally launches after fiery setback.

Producers, M-Net and DStv, and viewers, are on cloud number 9 following the launch of the 9th fame-courting season of Big Brother Africa - entitled Big Brother Africa Hotshots - on Sunday night in Johannesburg in a new camera house following a devastating fire a month ago which scuppered the launch.

Endemol SA, M-Net, MultiChoice and Sasasni Studios have so far refused to divulge the cause of the fire which threw the show into crisis and cut a month of the running time. Big Brother Africa Hotshots will now run for only 63 days on television, instead of 90.

"We not only beat the fire, we kept a positive attitude," said Big Brother Africa Hotshots host IK Osakioduwa from the live launch programme studio at Red Pepper productions in Linden, Johannesburg, calling the fire which destroyed the Sasani Studios stage on 2 September "a little setback".

Further down the road, in 7th Street, was the big house complex, hastily put together in the past 3 weeks to accomodate the voyeur show's contestants and camera crew.

Gone on Sunday night were the massive live crowd from the previous 8 seasons at launch of the Endemol South Africa produced show, replaced with a 70-odd, seated audience of media representatives, as journalists flown in from various publications across the continent sat ready with insta-vote devices to score the contestants as they were introduced.

On Sunday night the 26 new housemates - the first time including a contestant from Rwanda - entered the reality house of the show which can now be watched on MultiChoice's DStv on channels 197 and 198 for 24-hours per day, as well as with highlights shown on the AfricaMagic Showcase channel. The show is beamed to an audience of 25 million viewers across the African continent.

In a well-conceptualised and well-executed launch show, the 26 contestants - ranging from an exotic dancer, hairdresser, poet, fashion designer, aspiring actress and photographer to a business woman, radio presenter and more - had to perform talents (mostly singing) like an American beauty pageant, while they got scored by the studio audience.

A technical mishap which didn't influence the outcome of the final top-vote getter, Leveda, marred the live launch show when half the studio audience's voting devices didn't work during the talent performance of contestant Permithias, making it impossible to cast a vote for the contestant.

Live performances during the launch show included appearances by Nigeria's Davido and DJ Dimplez and AB Crazy, Tanzania's Diamond, as well as South Africa's Cassper Nyovest.

Over the course of the next three months contestants will have to "outshine" each other in celebrity and performance based tasks, having to "entertain" TV audiences in order to prevent being evicted from the house.