'OUR ENEMIES AT MULTICHOICE': Rajesh Sundaram in his book, Indentured - Behind the Scenes at Gupta TV, reveals how ANN7 execs lied to MultiChoice, how meetings with MultiChoice were a farce and how political pressure were allegedly exerted to get a better DStv channel number.

In his must-read book, Indentured - Behind the Scenes at Gupta TV, published by Jacana Media, the former ANN7 (DStv 405) editor Rajesh Sundaram reveals how ANN7 executives saw MultiChoice as "our enemy", blatantly lied to MultiChoice in meetings about ANN7's progress, and allegedly roped in former president Jacob Zuma to put pressure on MultiChoice to get a certain DStv channel number.

TVwithThinus already reported how in Indentured - Behind the Scenes of Gupta TV Rajesh Sundaram reveals how the Guptas and ANN7 plundered the SABC's archives - but the public broadcaster wasn't the only TV organisation being lied to and exploited.

ANN7 execs were apparently paranoid over MultiChoice, made false promises to MultiChoice and allegedly kept lying in order to get ANN7 on DStv as fast as possible.

Rajesh Sundaram writes on page 62 that "Atul Gupta was deeply suspicious of ANN7's television distribution company, MultiChoice, and filled me with many conspiracy theories about how they planned to sabotage the launch of ANN7".

"He was very suspicious of a demand from the company to get a copy of the electronic programme guide, or EPG, a schedule with a brief description of each show that each broadcaster is supposed to supply to its distribution company."

"Rajesh, I want you to prepare for our first meeting with DStv, our enemies at MultiChoice. Arun and you will go to the meeting tomorrow and I want you to give them a copy of the EPG and make sure that channel 404 on DStv is allocated to us. But I want to warn you, they are our enemies. They will try everything to see us fail," writes Rajesh Sundaram.

On page 63 he writes that "The Guptas did not want to follow the time-consuming process that DStv required in terms of quality checks and technical discussions. The DStv top brass, I was told, were not happy with being coerced like this."

Chapter 5 of Indentured - Behind the Scenes at Gupta TV starts off with ANN7's first meeting with MultiChoice, that Rajesh Sundaram describes in his book as "a very strange experience".

"It was coordinated by Max Magwaza from MultiChoice. We were told to insist on channel 404 and take a tough stand on any conditions that the MultiChoice team might set with regards to the launch."

"All the news channels are in the slots after channel 400. We must get the slot immediately after eNCA. This is critical. MultiChoice are playing politics and want to put us in a slot after 500. In your meetings with MultiChoice, make it very clear to them that we will not accept any other channel than 404. Ajay, my brother, is talking with the highest office in the country to ensure that we get this slot, but you must also push from your level, Atul told us before we left for the meeting," writes Rajesh Sundaram.

"It was clear that the team from MultiChoice did not believe we were technically or editorially prepared to launch a news channel by the end of July. The tension in the room was palpable. They were visibly upset with the political pressure that was being brought to bear on them to launch the channel quickly and on the terms directed by the Guptas."

Rajesh Sundaram writes that he "listened with growing disbelief" to the false promises the Guptas were making to MultiChoice and "that I knew we'd never be able to meet".

"The EPG I had made for them was an ambitious one that offered live programming for 18 hours a day. I knew that we were nowhere close to making that content."

"We did not have the people, the studio was not complete, and much of the broadcasting equipment had not even been ordered at this time. The team did not even have newsgathering and studio cameras."

Rajesh Sundaram writes that "clearly the channel would never meet the tough criteria set by MultiChoice in the given timeframe".

"The bi-weekly meetings with MultiChoice were a farce. Y P and Arun were forced to tell the the team lies about the timelines related to the status of broadcast systems and technical equipment. MultiChoice made no commitment about the slot they were going to give ANN7. The Guptas saw a conspiracy in this too."

"Channel 404 is the only vacant slot next to eNCA, but these people will not allocate it to us until we hit them with a stick on their head from the highest office. 405 is Russia Today, and we will be pushed to a slot lower than 410, and no one will watch us," Atul said."

"It was telling how the Guptas were not willing to subject themselves to the quality control and technical checks that MultiChoice wanted, yet were willing to invoke the president's office to put pressure on MultiChoice to give them the 404 slot."

On page 126 Rajesh Sundaram writes that "DStv suddenly gave in. Even as ANN7 was offering three bulletins a day produced on primitive systems and equipment nowhere near the quality standards prescribed by DStv, it was announced internally that DStv had been 'pressured' through president Jacob Zuma's office to oust Russia Today from the 405 slot and give it to us."

On page 100 of Indentured - Behind the Scenes at Gupta TV, another TV news channel, India's NDTV gets mentioned in another fascinating story when Atul Gupta switched to NDTV to show how he wanted ANN7 to look.

"We want all the graphics on our channel like NDTV. We should have the graphics at the top and the bottom of the screen. There should be many layers. The people of South Africa want a screen that keeps moving and updating. They do not get that with eNCA."

"I tried explaining to him how it was considered less sophisticated to have too many graphic bands and elements on screen, how it would be better to have a cleaner screen with a graphic band only in the lower third of the screen. This is not what he wanted to hear. 'I want the screen to be cluttered; we must dazzle our viewers with as many elements as we can.' "

On page 107 Rajesh Sundaram details how Atul Gupta decided to do away with professional, experienced news anchor for inexperienced models who had to be trained by Gerry Rantseli-Elsdon.

"His plan saved the company thousands of rands, but it cost the company millions in lost reputation, as we found out post-launch."

"Why do you want to hire a European to train the presenters? We will have a Miss South Africa train them. She has hosted hundreds of shows and this would be a piece of cake for her. The viewers will have a bombshell every time they tune in to ANN7,' Atul said."

"Atul wanted Gerry Rantseli-Elsdon to train the models. Gerry was hired to present the breakfast show, which had been branded Vuka Africa."

"Gerry was given a table and chair, a white board and a training room. Some days she had a camera at her disposal. She had no teleprompter, professional monitors or audio equipment in the initial weeks."

On page 130 he writes that "The bulletins we had produced at that time were, unsurprisingly, fullof technical glitches and were anchored by a group of models hired by Atul and trained by Gerry Rantseli-Elsdon. The young women were very raw, clueless about the news they were reading and very unfamiliar with a studio setting."

On page 147 he writes that "Even a day before launch, bulletins would be disrupted as the server crashed or the play-out system would fail or the teleprompter would go blank on the presenters."

On page 114 Rajesh Sundaram recounts how Atul Gupta said "we are nowhere near the quality of CNN International or BBC. He had very little understanding of television or the primitive conditions under which the bulletins were being produced."

On pages 156 and 157 Rajesh Sundaram in Indentured - Behind the Scenes at Gupta TV recounts ANN7's disastrous launch night that became a blooper-fest of epic proportions on DStv.

"Caroline Samuels and Mahreen Chenia from the sports desk were all set to host Game On, the prime time sports show, when at the last minute the teleprompter and play-out failed. On live television the two young presenters waited for many awkward seconds for the studio director to cut into a break and play promos."

"But the young Indian studio director who had just arrived panicked. The lack of training started to show. He told the anchors through the communication system to announce a break, but the system also malfunctioned at this time."

"Meanwhile Caroline and Mahreen bore the brunt of the technical failure and the clear lack of coordination between the play-out control room staff. After waiting for about a minute, Caroline walked to the play-out control room, assuming that the studio director had taken her out of vision. She had worked for over 16 hours without a break for the last three weeks, and as she walked intot eh PCR she was in tears."

"Atul came back from the launch ceremony and summoned me. 'The launch is trending on Twitter. They are talking about every mistake the team is making."

"The launch was this way because he chose to arrogantly ignore DStv and not stick to the roll-out plan they had prescribed. The launch was this way because he decided to go ahead without training the staff. The trickle of jokes on social media swelled into a tsunami by late night and had a crushing effect on the young team."

"The systemic issues grew over the next few days. Despite the best efforts of the technical team, the systems continued to crash regularly. The play-out system, the communication connections, the graphic engines, the teleprompter - anything that could crash did. The newsroom automation system would malfunction, mostly because of user-related errors."


TVwithThinus asked MultiChoice about Rajesh Sundaram's writings that political pressure were put on Naspers' TV unit to allocate a certain channel number to ANN7 on DStv.

Here is MultiChoice's response: "We can confirm that the teams from MultiChoice and Infinity Media Networks discussed the allocation of a channel number to ANN7 as part of preparing for the channel launch. The team from Infinity Media Networks proposed to be allocated on channel 404."

"MultiChoice then allocated ANN7 to channel 405, so that all local news channels can be grouped together. Russia Today was moved to channel 407."

"Grouping similar channels together - like mainstream international news channels, all movie channels or all sports channels - offers our customers an easier navigation experience. We were not contacted by the former president’s office to remove Russia Today from the 405 slot to make way for ANN7."

Indentured: Behind the Scenes at Gupta TV and published by Jacana Media is now on sale for R185.
MultiChoice is dumping ANN7, now owned by Mzwanele Manyi, from its DStv platform in August.

The insider story of the challenges and how the former ANN7 editor Rajesh Sundaram struggled to write his book, Indentured - Behind the Scenes at Gupta TV, in 2014 and finally got it published in 2018.

Just like Michael Wolff's book Fire and Fury about the chaotic Donald Trump White House, Rajesh Sundaram's must-read book Indentured: Behind the Scenes at Gupta TV is a real page-turner as the Indian author gives an eye-popping account, filled with shockers, about his time spent as editor behind-the-scenes before and during the launch of the controversial ANN7 (DStv 405) channel.

But how did Indentured: Behind the Scenes at Gupta TV, published by Jacana Media, came to be? And why now, when Rajesh Sundaram already said over four years ago that he was writing Indentured in 2013 and hoped to have it on bookshelves by Christmas 2013?

Why the long wait? 

TVwithThinus followed the story about the book, about ANN7, ever since Rajesh Sundaram first revealed that he's putting pen to paper about the channel started by the controversial Gupta family, involved in widespread State Capture allegations.

In his book he reveals how ANN7 was rushed to air on MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV platform although MultiChoice was considered with paranoia as "our enemies", how ANN7 blatantly lied to MultiChoice, how the ANN7 launch became the disaster he realised it would be, and how the shocking on-air mistakes led to the resulting disastrous and reputation destroying consequences.

Rajesh Sundaram details it all in a breath-taking way in his can't-put-down, tell-all of 164 pages.

But lets roll back the clock a few years. The publisher Jacana Media was doing the book, then it was dropped for some reason, and was then revived - published in mid-March and now retailing for R185.

The book is a fascinating addition to the bookshelf of anybody interested in the inner workings of television, TV news, TV news channels, and the wheeling and dealings of South Africa's Gupta family.

"Indentured: Behind the Scenes at Gupta TV was written in 2014 and it was decided, after legal concerns were raised and evaluating those concerns, not to push for publication at the time," Nadia Goetham, publisher and production manager at Jacana Media tells TVwithThinus.

"Jacana Media revisited the book at various stages in the last four years, especially as more information about the former president's [Jacob Zuma] involvement with the Gupta family and what then later became known as 'State Capture', came to light," she says.

"We kept hitting a brick wall with the legal issues until late last year when the Gupta email leaks looked like a perfect way to publish the author’s account of what had transpired at ANN7 while he was setting up the news channel."

Asked why Jacana decided to published now, and why this type of book, Nadia Goetham explains that "Rajesh Sundaram's story made headlines when he was intimidated and feared for his life while working to set up ANN7".

"His queries around certain issues pertaining to employee working conditions, visa irregularities, the close involvement of the Zuma family with the TV station's editorial policy and other operational issues made him very unpopular with the Guptas."

"He feared for his life and chose to go to the media – at the time City Press – to tell his story in order to not only expose the truth of what he was witnessing at ANN7, but also in a bid to keep himself safe from harm. This and various other factors contained in the book make for a fascinating first-person account by an insider at the time."

"At the time of him writing the book, in 2014, he was the only one willing to open the can of worms related to the Zuma-Gupta links, which would later reveal itself to be the machinery of state capture."

Asked about what was maybe one or two issues around the book making it difficult to publish, Nadia Goetham explains that the potential legal issues were the biggest.

"The legal ramifications, even though an honest account from the author, were potentially huge – not only for the author but also for Jacana Media. We pride ourselves on being a brave publisher but sometimes discretion has to be the better part of valour."

"Rajesh, back in India after his brief stint with ANN7 and literally fleeing to safety, wrote the book in four short months. He managed to produce a book filled with immediacy, even though we have been able to only publish it a few years after the events happened."

"More recent news articles suggest that Rajesh’s revelations in Indentured will be instrumental in investigating some of the claims related to the SABC's archival footage being sold to ANN7 for far less than what it is worth," says Nadia Goetham.


Indentured: Behind the Scenes at Gupta TV and published by Jacana Media is now on sale for R185.
MultiChoice is dumping ANN7, now owned by Mzwanele Manyi, from its DStv platform in August.

Before selling its treasured archives to MultiChoice, the SABC also sold it to ANN7 as Gupta executives laughed at 'stupid' SABC: 'The people at the SABC can be bought for a meal and a drink'.

Before the struggling South African public broadcaster sold its treasured archives to MultiChoice in a controversial channels deal, the SABC also apparently sold it to ANN7 (DStv 405) as Gupta executives laughed at the "stupid SABC" and said: "The people at the SABC can be bought for a meal and a drink; they are willing to give away their treasure trove of historical footage for peanuts".

The stunning claim is the latest of many to emerge from the buzzed about new book, Indentured: Behind the Scenes at Gupta TV, by author Rajesh Sundaram, a former ANN7 giving an insider's perspective on the horrific working conditions during the set-up and eventual disastrous launch of the "Gupta news" channel on MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV platform in August 2013.

While much has already been reported about the SABC's controversial deal with MultiChoice selling its archives to Naspers' pay-TV unit, it's now coming to light that the SABC actually also allegedly sold its archives for a fraction of what it's worth to the Gupta family accused in a litany of widespread State Capture allegations.

In his book, Rajesh Sundaram writes that that Laxmi Goel, an executive roped in by the Guptas to help with the setting up and launch of ANN7, during a meeting revealed "an elaborate plan to buy archival footage from the SABC".

"He told me how the Guptas had got a nod from the state broadcaster to buy this valuable archive. The SABC had plans to set up a 24/7 news channel of their own, but they were willing to sell their archives for a sweet deal to the Guptas".

"They have all their archives on mini DV tapes. Their library is not automated or digitised, and it takes them ages to find any footage. We will bring these tapes to our studio and digitise them. So from day one we will have a tapeless library with systems that will make it possible for us to pull out footage within a few seconds."

"We know the people at the SABC, so we will get footage at a very low rate. You will have to make sure that all the footage of historical importance at the SABC is included in the 100-hour bulk deal we plan to do with them," Laxmi Goel apparently told Rajesh Sundaram.

"But the SABC eventually did not allow the footage to be taken away from their office. Rahul Singh, a senior video librarian from India, was sent with mini digital video format tapes and asked to bring back 100 hours of footage from the thousands of tapes at the SABC archives".

"He spent about a month going to the SABC every day and sitting at a video editing bay there and transferring all the valuable historical footage the SABC had in its tape library. By the time he resigned and went back to India, he had collected 60 hours of priceless footage from the SABC library," writes Rajesh Sundaram.

"We are paying them a lump sum to get this footage. We have got a very sweet deal with them. The people at the SABC can be bought for a meal or a drink; they are willing to give away their treasure trove of historical footage footage for peanuts."

"They have a clause in the contract that says that we will have to also pay them a "per second" fee for every time we air the footage we have taken from them. But they are so stupid, how will they be able to tell what is their footage? How can they audit our use? We will get all their footage forever at just this one-time cost," Nazeem Howa said when the footage transfer were discussed later, writes Rajesh Sundaram.

He writes that Rahul was instructed "to take anyone he interacts with at the SABC for a drink or mean any time they wanted to when he was at the SABC transferring footage. He was told by Nazeem that this cost would be reimbursed to him".

"Get all of Nelson Mandela's footage, get footage of the atrocities on the blacks during the apartheid years; we can use it to show the young people of today how the whites treated their grandparents and parents. This footage is priceless, and I want you to take as much of it as possible back with you. Even if you get more than 100 hours, get that, we will pay them under the table, Atul Gupta told Rahul during our discussion."

"The archival footage at the SABC was indeed of a very high quality and in my view worth millions of rands," writes Rajesh Sundaram. "Nazeem, Laxmi and Atul repeatedly told me that the contract with the SABC for this sale favoured ANN7, was drafted by Gupta lawyers and that the price of the footage was 'peanuts' compared to its real value."

"Rahul digitised all the footage he got the very same day and catalogued and classified it on the video library system. This meant transferring the footage from tapes to servers. After the footage was tagged and put on the server, ANN7 was able to retrieve and air it in a matter of seconds, something that would take the SABC team hours or even days to do."

"I have not been able to figure out why the SABC signed this contract and handed valuable footage shot over decades to a company that had far superior archiving technology and would be a rival to its own proposed 24-hour news channel".

The SABC was asked in a media enquiry on Monday if the public broadcaster possibly has any comment or statement regarding what Rajesh Sundaram writes in his book Indentured: Behind the Scenes at Gupta TV, about the SABC and the SABC's archive material that was given to ANN7.

The SABC didn't respond.

Indentured: Behind the Scenes at Gupta TV is published by Jacana Media and is available in bookstores at R185.