SABC3 and Top Billing's Presenter Search on 3 returning for a 4th TV turn in May, will once again look for new on-air talent to join the channel's shows.

SABC3 and Top Billing's Presenter Search on 3 will return from May for a 4th time, once again looking to add new South African TV talent to joins shows like Top Billing, Expresso or Afternoon Express.

The Presenter Search on 3 will once again be produced by Tswelopele Productions with the search for a new presenter or presenters to join various SABC3 shows that is taking place to co-incide with the 25th anniversary of the venerable weekly gloss entertainment and lifestyle magazine show Top Billing that started on the SABC in 1992.

Previous seasons of the highly popular Presenter Search on 3 have made bona fide TV stars and celebrities of Simba Mhere and Jonathan Boynton-Lee with thousands of hopefuls who queued across the country in 2010 and in 2012 when it known as My Top Billing Dream.

The last season of Presenter Search on 3 was held in 2015 with the winners who were Zoe Brown who joined Expresso, Danilo Acquisto who joined Afternoon Express and Jade Hubner who joined Top Billing.

The show was however also a star vehicle launching pad for Chris Jaftha who made the Top 5 and was picked up soon afterwards by Top Billing as a presenter as well anyway, and who is currently also the co-presenter of Dancing with the Stars South Africa on M-Net (DStv 101).

Likewise Mishka Patel was picked up to join Tswelopele Productions' weekly Afrikaans magazine show Pasella on SABC2.

The presenter of the new Presenter Search on 3 will include among others Jonathan Boynton-Lee, Ayanda Thabethe and the evergreen Jeannie D.

Contestants will once again be put through their paces in grueling real-life TV challenges before and behind-the-scenes with various presenting tasks taking place in-studio and shot outside on-location to not just test the telegenic mettle of those who want to be on TV but also their adaptability and how they respond to unexpected production curveballs.

Pasella adds three new presenters as SABC2 yet again moves it to a new timeslot to create an uninterrupted Afrikaans programming flow block on Fridays.

Pasella is adding three new presenters when the Afrikaans lifestyle and entertainment magazine show on SABC2 returns for another season from this Friday, 5 February.

Pasella's timeslot is also once again changing - from 18:00 exactly a year ago during its last season to now 19:30 on Fridays where it will serve as a lead-out for the SABC's Afrikaans TV news bulletin.

Pasella moving to 19:30 and replacing the Sesotho news bulletin moving to 18:00, will serve as part of a new programming bridge to the Afrikaans game show Noot vir Noot at 20:00.

It's part of the SABC's attempt to keep Afrikaans viewers from tuning out by creating an uninterrupted Afrikaans language flow programming block of two and a half hours on Friday nights, starting with 7de Laan at 18:30, followed by the Afrikaans news, Pasella and then Noot vir Noot.

Joining the existing line-up of Pasella presenters Paul Rothman, Dieter Voigt, Melinda Bam, Vicky Davis, Lynelle Kenned and Simon Witbooi known as Hemelbesem, are Mishka Patel, Sean-Marco Vorster and Carmen Pretorius.

The show from Tswelopele Productions also responsible for SABC3's Top Billing, used to run uninterrupted all year round on SABC2 until March 2013 when the SABC decided to break it down into shorter interrupted seasons which returned in the new format in February last year.

Mishka Patel is finally getting TV screen time after the former Presenter Search on 3 finalist was officially announced on Expresso as the Win a Home co-presenter on SABC3 in August and then got inexplicably dumped causing big embarrassment.

Mishka Patel is a former Miss South Africa finalist and will interview actress Lindie Stander and painter Sandy Esau in the new Pasella season's first episode.

Sean-Marco Vorster was a presenter on SABC3's short-lived NAweek magazine show in 2015 and had roles in local Afrikaans films like Die Windpomp, Strikdas and Lystraf.

Soap star Carmen Pretorius who've appeared in Isidingo and Binnelanders has also done musicals and films like Lien se Lankstaanskoene.

Afrikaans personalities who will appear in the new Pasella season include Fanie de Villiers, Kurt Darren, Annie Malan, Faf du Plessis, Len Muller, Nianell and Dozi.

The first Pasella episode will be visiting Langebaan, with Hartbeespoortdam, Stellenbosch, Pretoria, Riebeek-Kasteel, Witrivier and Hermanus in upcoming episodes.

BREAKING. Mishka Patel quietly dumped as co-presenter from Private Property, Plascon, Nedbank an LG's Win a Home on SABC3.

Miskha Patel who was "overwhelmed" to be the new co-presenter of the second season of Plascon, Private Property, Nedbank, LG and Mercedes-Benz' advertiser-funded production (AFP) Win a Home has been dumped shortly before the first episode aired this past Friday.

That's after Miskha Patel was already talking about how she was "excited for the journey ahead".

TVSA has the story of the shocking way in which Mishka Patel was unceremoniously cut from Win a Home after Expresso and SABC3 told viewers she is one of the presenters, and after Miskha Patel on social media gushed about the show and her presenting gig.

While Mishka Patel was previously announced, she was suddenly, embarrassingly, no longer a part of Win a Home's second season, with no word from SABC3, Tswelopele Productions producing Win a Home or any of the sponsors on why she was suddenly missing in action.

While imaging with Khanya Siyengo together with Mishka Patel and SABC3 branding appeared beforehand as well as other pictures of them together, and them being interviewed together on Expresso, Khanya Siygeno was suddenly the sole presenter.

Mishka Patel is gone.

"A revision of the show's format, aligned to the reality format, informs the programme's current look and feel," says Win a Home.

"Final testing with the client" apparently led to the axing of Mishka Patel for reasons unknown.

"It sucks and reveals just how hectic and ruthless the TV industry can be," writes TVSA editor Tashi Tagg.

"What's so especially shocking is about this particular situation is how it was so publicly confirmed by so many of those involved with the series. The Win a Home Twitter account retweeted Expresso's tweet about the two of them hosting together," TVSA reports.

"The situation also highlights what a huge problem it is when shows are at the mercy of sponsors in advertiser-funded shows."

The irony for many is how television and programming about beautiful things and about the creation and showcasing of beautiful things externally, often has a mostly hidden, ugly underbelly.

It's not clear why a show like Win a Home and SABC3 would trot out someone like Mishka Patel, have her talk on public television about being a co-presenter, then cut her in conjunction with a client or clients of the advertiser-funded production - and then not explain her sudden absence.

It leaves so many questions about the ugly brand damage inflicted on sponsors, a broadcaster and the business of creating beauty.

Presenter Search on 3 reveals the Top 11 contestants who will now battle it out to become TV presenters across various SABC3 shows.

SABC3's reality TV competition show looking to find new TV presenters has revealed a Top 11, not Top 10, Friday night on Presenter Search on 3.

The list of telegenics includes eight TV competitors from Cape Town, two from Johannesburg and one from Pretoria.

Khanya Siyengo (Cape Town), Ziphozakhe Zokufa (Johannesburg), Mishka Patel (Cape Town), Danilo Acquisto (Cape Town), Leon Nieuwoudt (Pretoria), Sanda Shandu (Cape Town), Christopher Jaftha (Johannesburg), Jade Hubner (Cape Town), Caley van der Kolk (Cape Town), Nambitha Ben-Mazwi (Cape Town) and Zoe Brown (Cape Town) all made the cut.

None of the Port Elizabeth or Durban contestants made it.

The Top 11 will be whittled down over the next few weeks to find presenters to join SABC3's Top Billing, Expresso and a new lifestyle magazine TV show.

The Top 11 were unveiled at Cape Town's Fire & Ice hotel this past Friday. They will continue to battle it out with real TV presenter tests and challenges until the finale is broadcast on Friday 29 May and which will be recorded in Zanzibar.

Several of the Top 11 contestants have already found a level of fame. 

Danilo Acquisto is known as one of the Hectic Nine-9 presenters on SABC2 and is a DJ on Goodhope FM, Christopher Jaftha has won several best looking man awards, Mishka Patel was a Miss South Africa 2014 finalist and Ziphozakhe Zokufa as first princess took up the crown as Miss South Africa 2014 after Rolene Strauss became Miss World.

Nambitha Ben-Mazwi, who already tried her hand at TV presenting, acting and singing, was added as the wild card addition to make the Presenter Search on 3's Top 10 a Top 11.

Leon Nieuwoudt has worked as an international model, banker Khanya Siyengo is a basketball coach and radio presenter and Zoe Brown has a degree in international relations.

The UCT economics graduate Sanda Shandu is a musician and actor, entrepreneur and tomboy Jade Hubner is good at athletics and music, and Caley van der Volk who was born in Willowvale in the Transkei has already travelled the world.

The Presenter Search on 3, the third iteration of the show, has already with the latest season showed and successfully harnassed what real cross-platform potential and true media property synergy opportunities there exists within the SABC – something rarely tapped to the extent that it really can be by the public broadcaster.

Presenter Search on 3 contestants already visited SABC2's Morning Live and SABC3's Expresso and received advice and did interesting TV challenges behind-the-scenes.

SABC on-air talent ranging from Neill Anthony of Neill Anthony Private Chef, Three Talk with Noeleen’s Noeleen Maholwana-Sangqu, Minnie Dlamini from SABC1's Soccerzone, former Eastern Mosaic’s presenter and Lotus FM DJ Jailoshini Naidoo and Morning Live’s Leanne Manas already appeared to give the contestants challenges and advice, all while giving viewers a fascinating glimpse every Friday night of the SABC's industrial TV complex at work and the hard work that happens behind the shiny lights.