Another prime time line-up rejig on CNN International from 10 September as Christiane Amanpour goes an hour and Julia Chatterley's business show, First Move, makes its debut.

CNN is overhauling its programming line-up for CNN International (DStv 401) in South Africa as well as the rest of the African continent and the Middle East, that will kick in from 10 September when Christiane Amanpour's reformatted hour-long show makes its debut.

The latest CNN schedule shuffle however still has no dedicated African news programme during prime time for African viewers in the way that other global news channels like BBC World News (DStv 400 / StarSat 256 / Openview 112 / Cell C black 501) has the daily Focus on Africa at 19:30, or CGTN (DStv 409 / StarSat 266 ) has the daily Africa Live at 19:00, covering Africa during prime time.

CNN that has agreed to a simulcast of Christiane Amanpour's current affairs programme in the United States on the PBS channel, decided to use the programme's expansion to an hour long show in America and the addition of contributors, to rejig and rebuild the programming schedule of CNN International around it.

From 10 September when the half hour Amanpour changes its name to Amanpour & Company in the United States, the hour long show will now start on weekdays at 19:00 on CNN International - an hour earlier.

As TVwithThinus previously reported, Amanpour & Company will add the four journalists Walter Isaacson, Michel Martin, Alicia Menendez and Hari Sreenivasan as contributors, and will feature wide-ranging, in-depth conversations with global thought leaders and cultural influencers on the issues and trends impacting the world each day, from politics, business and technology to arts, science and sports".

This will be followed by Hala Gorani Tonight that from 10 September will move to an earlier timeslot of 20:00 instead of 21:00 on weekdays on CNN International.

Richard Quest's Quest Means Business is also moving an hour earlier from 10 September and will now run at 21:00 instead of 22:00 on weekdays, continuing with its often-irreverent analysis and interviews of the day's global and American business news.

The news channel from Turner Broadcasting that often abruptly interrupted scheduled shows on CNN International with The Lead with Jake Tapper is now giving the show a fixed timeslot on CNN International from 10 September and will be shown at 22:00.

The Lead with Jake Tapper will do commentary and analysis of the day's headlines from the United States, a show that doesn't really so much resonate with African viewers.

CNN Today, co-anchored by Amara Walker and Michael Holmes, is also moving an hour earlier and instead of midnight, will now start at 23:00 on CNN International from 10 September - still covering the day's global headlines from around the world.

State of America, the weekday talk show about Donald Trump's day that was recently dumped from the schedule and replaced by a nightly repeat of CNN Talk with Max Foster, will return as a weekly show on Fridays from 14 September, again anchored by the preppy Kate Bolduan, and now closing out the week at 23:00 on CNN International.

CNN International says CNN World Sport will break into programming with bulletins across the schedule".

The Africa-focused programming strands, Marketplace Africa, African Voices and Inside Africa remain on the schedule and will continue to be part of CNN International's schedule across the week, with news from across the African continent that will continue to feature in CNN International's main shows as and when it happens.

During the day on CNN International, CNN Talk with Max Foster will remain in its usual midday timeslot of 13:00.

In the afternoon on CNN International there will also be two changes. As previously reported, Bloomberg Television's Julia Chatterley is joining CNN International and her new business news show, First Move with Julia Chatterley, will now be seen at 15:00 in the afternoon.

Julia Chatterley will report from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and will cover the latest market moves in the United States and around the world.

Julia Chatterley will also appear in the recently introduced Quest Express with Richard Quest that remains in its 18:00 timeslot, but is apparently changing its programme title to The Express.

"With new shows and expanded programming, these changes will benefit our audiences enormously," says Mike McCarthy, the senior vice president and general manager of CNN International.

"Across business, current affairs, politics, culture and sport, CNN International viewers will get the complete picture, from around the world, in one place."


CNN International programme/timeslot changes from 10 September:
Now                                                                          10 September
15:00 CNN Money with Maggie Lake                     15:00 First Move with Julia Chatterley
16:00 International Desk
17:00 Connect the World with Becky Anderson
18:00 Quest Express                                                   18:00 The Express
19:00 Wolf                                                                     19:00 Amanpour
20:00 Amanpour / CNN Talk                                   20:00 Hala Gorani Tonight
21:00 Hala Gorani Tonight                                        21:00 Quest Means Business
22:00 Quest Means Business                                    22:00 The Lead with Jake Tapper
23:00 Amanpour (repeat)                                          23:00 CNN Today

2017's (GREATEST) GUILTY PLEASURES. Here's the top 5 TV shows that were so great this year, that I literally couldn't wait to watch the next episode.

The bane (and more positively, the delight) of a TV critic's existence is that you get to watch a lot of television. A lot of television.

Not everything is great, not everything is average, and there's always just more and more and more TV watching homework.

But once in a while a true TV gem comes across your part and then it's actually not just work, but also highly enjoyable to watch.

2017 delivered some great shows, and also some guilty pleasures that's not really great, but were still so absorbing and fascinating that I personally couldn't stop watching them.

Surprisingly, two of the shows that I thought showed some of the very best TV work of 2017 were local South African shows, and cooking shows - and I don't usually have a specific personal liking for either.

The fact that both these shows were magnificently produced, in a genre that I didn't expect, and had me enthralled, says a lot of the exceptional work that was put in by the production companies to create world-class television shows.

Here's the top 5 shows of 2017 that honestly made me personally count the days until the next episode:

JAN (Showmax, VIA, DStv 147)

My best new show of 2017 on South African television came as a complete and stunning surprise – the arrestingly beautiful fly-on-the-wall docuseries profiling South Africa’s Michelin-star chef Jan-Hendrik van der Westhuizen at his Nice restaurant in France and beyond.

Visually akin to the Netflix series Chef’s Table, JAN is by far the most breath-takingly beautiful show that was seen on SA television in 2017.

Co-produced and available on Naspers' streaming service Showmax, the other surprise was its linear TV channel partner, VIA (DStv 147) where JAN definitely ranks as the channel's most sumptuously shot show ever among a channel offering of more down-to-earth lifestyle shows.

Produced by Brainwave productions and boasting the best production values and stellar attention to detail, lighting, camerawork, editing and a casting coup in terms of Jan who finally relented to being filmed, the show is a mesmerisingly beautiful and immersive work of art.

JAN is in Afrikaans, English, French and Italian but has English subtitles making it universally watchable.

Koekedoortjie (kykNET, DStv 144)

If cum laude master class film students did a vanity project, Koekedoortjie would be it. 

Totally unexpected, this Afrikaans spin-off version for kids of the Afrikaans baking show Koekedoor was painful to watch – painful due to the delicate filming finesse and the production's attention to detail that made this show an utter wonder to behold.

It was, unexpectedly, my best TV show of 2017 (until JAN came along). 

Magical with a beautiful set, superb lighting, camera work, music and editing and filmed in Cape Town by Homebrew Films, the meticulously crafted show is not just enjoyable – it's technically as far as TV goes, close to flawless. 

It's a total TV jewel, that, like Harry Potter, shouldn't be able to exist and be do-able in the South African TV universe, yet does.

The Wedding Bashers (M-Net, DStv 101)

Viewers came for the weddings but stayed for the cringe (and the delicious snark). 

The Wedding Bashers on M-Net is yet another show that tops my list of TV for 2017 and that gave no clues that it would become utterly must-watch TV. 

Move along Housewives – the wedding crashers Zavion Kotze, Siba Mtongana, Cindy Nell-Roberts and Denise Zimba were over-the-top wonderful in this locally-produced new show from [SIC] Entertainment.

Filmed over many months so as to wait for when they could all attend and for perfectly suited weddings (the good, the bad, the superhero and the totally ri-di-cu-lous!), you only need to watch one minute to be captivated by the awe-inspiring put-downs and compliments of the judging foursome – especially that real-life wedding planner Zavion Kotze.

Who knew that The Wedding Bashers would turn out great as a local show? Totally 2017's most irresistible guilty pleasure.

By the way, Our Perfect Wedding on Mzansi Magic (DStv 161) isn't a new show but if you don't want to be trapped and totally sucked in, don't even watch a minute as the highly addictive show continues to find wedding people you never knew you wanted to sit and stare and shake your head at!

Shadowhunters (Netflix)

Why I'm watching Shadowhunters I don’t know. 

I’m not the demo. But in a post Gossip Girl, post Vampire Diaries world, I need my fantasy show with beautiful young people who are actually werewolves, vampires, fairies, and human-angel demon hunters with a lot of angst. 

And did I mention … they're beautiful.

Literally obsessed, I spent a big chunk of 2017 like that one cat meme typing furiously on the keyboard, refreshing, refreshing, refreshing and waiting for the next episode to drop on Netflix after its weekly broadcast in America. 

Who wants to be a Jedi when you can be someone's Parabatai?

State of America with Kate Bolduan (CNN International, DStv 401)

I'm sure I completely hate this show. In capital HATE letters. 

And yet … yet I watch it … Every. Single. Day. As in every weeknight evening.

Why? Obviously something is wrong with me. Or something has gone wrong with America.

Motor-mouth Kate Bolduan moderates a daily panel around her transparent perspex desk, hardly gives the "panelist" a chance to talk and to discuss the daily dramas of America’s president Donald Trump.

Oh wait – now I know why I'm addicted to this show.

As America's presidency and politics went completely off the rails in 2017 and the White House internal drama turned into the biggest real-life reality show ever, State of America is where I've caught up with the day's "Trump Show" that was and that constantly seems more surreal, unreal and shocking that anything Aaron Sorkin could ever dream up for The West Wing.

By a Friday, Monday on this show (although it gives a daily count-on) seems like months away as Kate and cohorts discuss all the day's lurid headline-grabbing Trump-details.

It is true  trainwreck television, and Kate who is with child has banned the word "pivot" but it is can't-look-away trainwreck television. 

Watch it, but don't say you haven't been warned – you will lose 5 half hours per week and wonder why, but be completely unable to stop. 

CNN International adds a new weeknight show, State of the Race with Kate Bolduan; will cover the 2016 American presidential election from New York.

CNN is adding a new weekday prime time show, State of the Race with Kate Bolduan, from today to CNN International (DStv 401) that will cover the ongoing American primary elections and the upcoming presidential election.

State of the Race with Kate Bolduan, now finally added to the electronic programme guide (EPG) on MultiChoice's DStv before its first episode tonight, will broadcast on weekdays at 20:30 (South African time) from CNN's New York bureau.

The half hour weeknight State of the Race with Kate Bolduan adds to the already breathless American election coverage for international viewers from Wolf Blitzer's Wolf on CNN International and the more grounded weekly show, Political Mann.

It's not clear what's happening with Zain Asher who anchored wider international news for viewers during the weekday time period.

Interestingly CNN International (DStv 401) increased its audience share during the month of April on MultiChoice's DStv, with viewership climbing to 5.47%, with viewership and share gain coming mostly from a loss of share at BBC World News (DStv 400 / StarSat 256) that fell to a paltry 3.49% share in April from March.

Although CNN International dramatically increased its American primary election coverage during April with numerous, often-jarring, switches to the CNN domestic feed for international viewers, it's not possible to say that the channel's bigger news audience share on DStv was specifically attributable to more American election coverage.

CNN International describes State of the Race with Kate Bolduan as "a nightly destination for international audiences looking for an in-depth lowdown on the race to the White House".

"This has already been a race like no other, and it is clear there is a lot more to come," says Kate Bolduan in a statement.

"Every night we're going to bring our international audiences along for the ride - offering the very latest developments from the campaign trail and giving them the inside scoop of what is really going on within the campaigns and in the minds of American voters."

"Around the world everyone is talking about this US election," says Tony Maddox, the executive vice president and managing director of CNN International.

"As we get into the decisive campaign stages and open up key election battlegrounds, State of the Race will bring an insiders' view from one of CNN’s most skilled political journalists. We'll be delivering international audiences all they need to fully understand this vitally important story with intelligence, passion and a little humor, too."