TV NEWS ROUND-UP. Today's interesting TV reports and articles to read - 26 February 2021.

Here's the latest news about TV that I read and that you should read too:    

■ Netflix has renewed the Spanish youth series ELITE about the Lax Encinas high schoolers has been renewed for a 5th season before the start of season 4.

■ The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) that votes for the Golden Globes and that has no black members now says that it has an "action plan" to specifically recruit black members.

■ Original shows give Netflix a big edge in the video streaming wars.

■ The Walt Disney Company's new Star streaming service add-on - the "international Hulu" - is leaving international buyers,like for instance MultiChoice and M-Net - in the lurch.

Disney is creating massive confusion and big questions for its international partners making use of its content distribution system for shows ... that are and will dry up.

■ When is a plus actually a minus when it comes to naming your video streaming services?

An idea that seemed like a real plus when video streaming was newer, has now become a cliché.

■ Why Paramount+ is proof that we've hit peak video streaming.

In an era of way, way too much TV, things get lost.

■ The showrunner of Snowpiercer on Netflix talks about keeping trains running amid Covid-19 and dealing with superfans.

■ 10 things TV should stop doing right now.

From reboots and spinoffs to streaming services - enough already!

■ Traditional pay-TV subscribers are spending as much money on video streaming services as cord-cutters who have ended their satellite-TV subscriptions.

■ New video streaming services are breathing new life into old TV classics.

■ Netflix wants to start shifting from quantity to quality content as it lays out a vision where it no longer has all the content, but the best content.

■ The growing, big struggle to try and place ratings on streaming shows.

■ 60% of traditional pay-TV subscribers would love to watch a show on a video streaming service.

■ Will political documentary survive the age of Netflix?

The struggle to speak truth to power in the age of streaming.

The Snowpiercer film picked up for a reboot TV series with actors Jennifer Connelly and Daveed Diggs.

The 2013 film Snowpiercer has been picked up as a TV series and will be produced as a science fiction drama series by Tomorrow Studios and Turner’s Studio T with actors Jennifer Connelly and Daveed Diggs.

The film followed a train in a frozen future, post-apocalyptic world, constantly moving through an ice landscape.

On the inside a rebellion started (with a surprise twist ending), where what is left of humanity was "sorted" and "compartmentalised" in various carriages with different "themes" according to a social hierarchy from poor worker slaves right at the back living in squalor, to the wealthy living in luxury at the front.

“I’m a personal fan of Bong Joon Ho’s epic film, and jumped at the chance to honor his original vision, yet expand upon the world and characters with a diverse, award-winning cast,” says Sarah Aubrey, the executive vice president of original programming for the TNT channel in America.

“Science fiction is the perfect genre to examine issues of race, class, gender and natural resources with thought-provoking and exciting storytelling. Snowpiercer will explore those relevant issues while embarking on a wild, action-filled ride.”

Like the film, the Snowpiercer drama series is set seven years after the world has become a frozen wasteland and will have a first season of 10 episodes.

It revolves around the remnants of humanity, who inhabit a gigantic, perpetually-moving train that circles the globe. Class warfare, social injustice and the politics of survival are all questioned in this television adaptation.

“Given the exceptional global appeal of the original film, we have a tremendous obligation to ensure the TV adaptation is exceptional in scope and magnitude,” says Marty Adelstein, CEO of Tomorrow Studios. “We have found that with TNT and with our talented cast. Now we are excited to work together in creating a world unlike any other on television.”

While no South African TV channel for Snowpiercer is known yet, it's very likely that Snowpiercer will end up on M-Net (DStv 101) which is where other TNT channel shows like Dallas, HawthoRNe, Rizzoli & Isles, Major Crimes, Animal Kingdom and The Last Ship went to, although some of its series like Falling Skies and The Librarians went to The Universal Channel (DStv 117).

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

■ Mikhail Lesin, the founder of the Russian TV news channel RT (DStv 407) dead in a hotel room.
Apparently died from a heart attack in Washington hotel room, but conspiracy theories now swirl.

■ India news channel NDTV (DStv 413) apologises for disastrously wrong coverage.
NDTV chairman Prannoy Roy apologises for totally botched Indian election coverage; "we've never made such a big error - we've made big errors - but not as big as this one"; blames pollsters' statistics.
- NDTV which just posted its Q2 results, is actually still running at a loss as a TV news channel.


■ Turkey dramatically clamping down on freedom of speech gives CNN Türk a massive fine for simply having someone voice opposition to the government.
- Meanwhile TRT World starts as Turkey's new state-run 24-hour TV news channel, mimicking CNN International with its on-screen lower-third graphics.
- The Istanbul based news channel will have studios in Washington, Kuala Lumpur and London.


■ Snowpiercer the movie adapted as a new science fiction TV series.

■ The Daily Show has dropped and lost 38% of its viewers with Trevor Noah.
Hollywood Reporter chart reveals the new pecking order and where the Comedy Central (DStv 122) late-night show now fits in ratings wise.

■ South Africa's StarSat from StarTimes expands into Zambia.
Enters the market with extremely low monthly subscription packages to compete with MultiChoice's DStv.

■ "Poor people will get 100% subsidies for set-top boxes for digital terrestrial television migration," says embattled communications minister Faith Muthambi.
Says poor households earning less than R3 200 per month will get one of the 5 million STBs needed for the switch from analogue to digital migration.

■ The Netflix effect: More streaming means more and better TV shows.
Internet video economics and the growth in video-on-demand (VoD) services mean more,original, and higher-value production TV shows.
- Netflix boss says there's not "nearly enough TV content".

■ And why the Golden Age of "Peak TV" isn't going to end soon.
There's just more and more great, original TV shows: Why there's no TV bubble to burst.

■ Moronic Nigerian lawmakers "alarmed" over "immoral" content on DStv.
Clueless and out-of-touch Nigerian politicians who know nothing about television nor broadcasting condemn MultiChoice Africa and wants more censorship of DStv. Political idiots in Nigeria worried about the "spate of uninhibited display of obscenities and uncensored programmes on the Nigerian airwaves".


■ The "Age of Denial" of American broadcasting TV.
American broadcasters no longer want to admit shows are bad and are cancelled - they now just give "reduced episode orders".
- How broadcasters are now cancelling TV shows without you knowing.

■ Jeremy Clarkson of BBC's Top Gear "showed a lack of respect" to colleagues.
Script editor who've worked on Top Gear for 13 years trashes the disgusting Jeremy Clarkson in his new book, saying he let the crew down and his apology was "half-hearted".

■ Wendy Williams Show on BET (DStv 129) extended for several more years.
Although the actual talk show's contract hasn't been extended itself, it's basically a formality as a 7-year extended contract has been signed between Wendy Williams and Lionsgate.

■ Shonda Rhimes doesn't know how Grey's Anatomy will end but has the end of Scandal! planned.
Creator and writer of both shows seen on M-Net (DStv 101) in South Africa where Scandal! is renamed The Fixer, doesn't know how Meredith Grey's story will end, but is sure of what will happen when Scandal! eventually finishes.