Showing posts with label SABC Entertainment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SABC Entertainment. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 19, 2015

The SABC to launch a 6th TV channel soon since Hlaudi Motsoeneng secured R1.5 billion to start the new channel, says SABC chairperson.


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The SABC is set to launch a 6th TV channel soon after the public broadcaster's controversial and famously matricless chief operating officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng secured R1.5 billion for the SABC to start another new channel.

SABC chairperson Mbulaheni Obert Maguvhe surprised parliament with the news of a new, planned 6th SABC TV channel on Tuesday.

"Hlaudi and his team have secured R1.5 billion with which we are going to establish a new TV channel. That will be the 6th channel," said Mbulaheni Obert Maguvhe.

The new 6th channel will join SABC1, SABC2, SABC3 as well as the SABC News (DStv 404) and the archive rerun channel SABC Encore (DStv 156).

SABC News and SABC Encore are supplied by the public broadcaster exclusively to MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV - despite "must-carry" regulations from the broadcasting regulator, Icasa, that all satellite and pay-TV platforms like ODM's StarSat and Platco Digital's OpenView HD should get and show all public access channels.

It's not clear whether this new 6th SABC channel will also be carried by MultiChoice on DStv exclusively and Mbulaheni Obert Maguvhe didn't reveal more details.

The channel could be SABC Entertainment - which was supposed to launch according to the contract with MultiChoice but which was eventually changed to SABC Encore - although it will most likely be SABC Sport as a 24-hour TV channel.

The creation of SABC Sport will bring an end to the schedule disruption of the SABC's existing three terrestrial channels every time there's soccer, cricket or rugby tournaments in cases where the SABC manages to secure the broadcasting rights.

"Some of the reason why we lose revenue is because there's so many sports of national interest and projects of national interest we disrupt our schedule," said Hlaudi Motsoeneng.

"When you disrupt the schedule, which means you lose revenue, because you need to pay back the money you have already received from advertisers and sponsors - there are some penalties," said Hlaudi Motsoeneng.

"It is important for us as the SABC to invest in compelling content. The second part is that we need to ensure that we broaden the number of platform that the SABC has in place," the new SABC CEO Frans Matlala told parliament on Tuesday.

"We have the 24-hour SABC News (DStv 404) channel, we just launched the SABC Encore (DStv 156) entertainment channel. There will be a couple more TV channels that we are going to be launching in due course," said Frans Matlala.

The 6th channel from the SABC will presumably only launch after the long-delayed commercial start of digital terrestrial television (DTT) in South Africa.

In May this year Hlaudi Motsoeneng said the SABC will launch with the existing 5 channels once DTT starts - far from the 18 TV channels the SABC told parliament it would have under DTT just four years ago.

Sunday, April 12, 2015

Today's interesting TV stories to read from TV with Thinus - 12 April 2015.


Pressure is mounting on the SABC to suspend its head of news, Jimi Matthews over allegations of assault.
Jimi Matthews has not been suspended for allegedly assaulting a female SABC technician; Jimi Matthews appeared before a grievance hearing at the SABC this past Tuesday but it was postponed to 21 April because witnesses were not there.


Acting SABC board chairman Obert Maguvhe says the fired SABC board members are gone.
"Once we remove a person, they are removed" he says over the recently fired Hope Zinde, Rachel Kalidass and Ronnie Lubisi. Meanwhile Joyce Moloi-Moropa, the chairperson of parliament's communications portfolio committee, did get a legal opinion after the minister of communications, Faith Muthambi said the SABC is a state-run company and the SABC board members were fired according to that act.


"Diabolical and secret" MultiChoice and SABC deal over SABC News and SABC Entertainment channels criticised
Although SABC News (DStv 404) and the SABC Entertainment channel which will be launched soon on DStv are produced by the SABC as a public broadcaster, these two channels are exclusively made and available only for MultiChoice and no other satellite TV broadcasters.

Read the entire SABC MultiChoice SABC News SABC Entertainment channels contract here as a public interest document, publicly available, involving South Africa's public broadcaster, as part of Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) case it is making at South Africa's Competition Tribunal.

National Geographic Channel (DStv 181) now wants to get into drama series.
After the recent success of Killing Jesus, and following Discovery Channel's Klondike and others, the factual channel now wants to do full-length drama series and drama mini-series as part of a drama strategy since "the market is changing".

MultiChoice Swaziland isn't scared of looming competition in Swaziland.
Swazi Observer reports that digital terrestrial television (DTT) in Swaziland will bring 20 new TV channels - Swazi TV, Channel S, as well as 12 state broadcaster TV channels, and 6 TV channels from new players in the market. MultiChoice says competition will "stimulate the market".

FOX is working on new drama series, Aftermath.
Like The Last Ship the drama will revolve around what happens when a deadly worldwide flu pandemic breaks out.

The first trailer for the new upcoming science fiction drama series Dark Matter.
In this new drama series starting in June, six people wake up on a derelict spaceship and have no idea who they are, how they got there, or why. Each one has a special skill. And they're "dangerous". Dark Matter is from the writer-producers of Stargate.

Sunday, June 29, 2014

SABC entertainment TV channel on MultiChoice's DStv platform will launch before the end of 2014, says the SABC.


The SABC says its SABC entertainment channel will launch on MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV platform before the end of this year.

The SABC says partnerships between itself as a public broadcaster and private companies to provide TV channels to them, will be come increasingly important and is an important focus of the SABC.

The SABC entertainment TV channel should have launched in November 2013 on DStv - one of two SABC channels supplied by the South African public broadcaster to MultiChoice - the other being the SABC News (DStv 404) 24-hour TV news channel.

The SABC entertainment TV channel will be using archive material from the SABC's TV library to compile the schedule.

"In our partnership that we currently have with DStv, we currently provide the 24-hour TV news channel, SABC News to DStv".

"We should be launching another channel with DStv before this year is over which is a general entertainment channel," Leo Manne, the general manager for TV channels at the SABC, told TV critics, journalists and advertisers at the SABC's Post 2014 World Cup programming Upfront.

TV with Thinus asked MultiChoice in the week about what the SABC said and what MultiChoice wants to share or say about the channel.

MultiChoice says "the launch and details of the SABC entertainment channel will be announced when we are ready to communicate".

"It is important speaking to an audience like this, in terms of digital terrestrial television (DTT), but also in terms of creating TV channels outside of DTT with some of our telecommunications partners, partnerships - public-private partnerships - in creating channel opportunities are very important and will be very important for us going forward," said Leo Manne.

"There are some TV channels that we will capacitate ourselves and build ourselves to meet our mandate [for DTT], but there's some entertainment TV channels - some specific niche entertainment TV channels - that we will go into partnerships with others and other public partners to ensure that we create entertainment that speaks to all South Africans," said Leo Manne.

Saturday, December 19, 2009

BREAKING. SABC working on brand-new SABC Entertainment and SABC Education channels.


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For the first time the SABC is officially stating that it's working on brand-new digital TV channels, SABC Entertainment, SABC Sport and SABC Education.

The SABC that started its trial service with its own digital set top boxes (STB's) this year for the switch-over to digital terrestrial television (DTT) in South Africa from next year, says in its latest financial year report that the trial currently comprises 7 SABC TV channels.

These 7 SABC TV channels include digital broadcasting versions of SABC1, SABC2 and SABC3 (exactly the same ones that viewers are currently seeing, - but with added digital content of course like an electronic programme guide (EPG) - and other enhanced features), but also 3 trial channels: SABC Entertainment, SABC Sport and SABC Education.
(E.tv also has 2 trial channels as part of the mix but these 2 channels don't form a part of the 7).

The SABC is using 1 755 STB's in its DTT trial run pilot project.

Click on READ MORE below for more brand-new information on the new SABC Entertainment and SABC Education channels that I've found out.