Comment awaited on Super 5 Media seeking yet another extension on its pay TV license from Icasa.

The wannabe pay TV operator Super 5 Media, formerly Telkom Media, is begging for yet another pay TV license extension after having failed to start any kind of pay TV service in South Africa in more than 3 years.

Super 5 Media, owned by Shenzhen Media SA and controlled by Imbani Media, was granted a pay TV license by the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) more than 3 years ago in August 2008. On Digital Media (ODM) has since started the TopTV subscription television service in South Africa.

In the Government Gazette of 28 December 2011 Icasa is inviting comment on Super 5 Media's umpteenth license extension request. Super 5 Media is applying for yet another 6 month extension of its pay TV license to start a commercial subscription television broadcasting service.

South Africa's TV industry and other interested parties have until 28 January to comment on Super 5 Media's request for another license extension after which Icasa will make a decision.

ALSO READ: Struggling Super 5 Media keeps begging Icasa for further extensions on its license conditions to start a pay TV service in South Africa.

BREAKING. Wannabe pay TV operator Super 5 Media licence gets extended to February 2011 for dubious reasons.

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Yesterday I broke the news RIGHT HERE about a surprising six month extension for Super 5 Media after the wannabe pay TV operator was supposed to lose its licence at the end of August. The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) okay'ed a further six months for Super 5 Media (formerly Telkom Media until Shenzhen Media SA took over the shareholding) to come up with, and start a viable subscription television service in South Africa.

Now I can be first to tell you why!

Icasa granted the dubious extension to Super 5 Media who now has until the end of February 2011 to start a service, because, according to Super 5 Media ''its application for an Individual Electronic Communications Network Service licence to self-provide is yet to be finalized by Icasa''. Super 5 Media told Icasa that the company intends to provide its own signal distribution for the service.

Firstly, in normal language, it means that Super 5 Media (basically a shell of a company now after firing basically everyone last month and mired in financial problems) doesn't want to make use of outside signal distributors like for instance Sentech or Orbicom but want to handle signal distribution themselves.

Secondly, its VERY STRANGE that Icasa granted this extension. Super 5 Media had three years already since it was granted a pay TV licence in 2007, burned through more than half a billion rand and has no service to show for it. Why has the issue of an electronic communications network service licence not been resolved much earlier? Why is Icasa granting an extension to a company clearly not able to mastering the rudimentary requirements of a pay TV service in three years and after the flood of news about the quagmire Super 5 Media is currently finding itself? Why is a struggling company getting what seems to be special treatment after being a no-show for three years and several fake, empty promises, and then go pleading right at the end for more time?

BREAKING. Surprising 6 month extension granted for wannabe pay TV service Super 5 Media supposed to lose its licence at the end of August.

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It's nothing more than basically an empty shell at this point but I can exclusively break the news that the wannabee pay TV operator Super 5 Media has received a six month extension to start a pay TV service in South Africa.

Super 5 Media, formerly Telkom Media before it was sold to Shenzhen Media SA, was supposed to lose its licence at the end of August after failing for years to start a viable subscription television service in South Africa. But I can tell you first that the company that basically imploded earlier last month after burning through more than half a billion rand since it started, has received a very surprising six month extension from the Independent Communication Authority of South Africa (Icasa).

Super 5 Media now has until the end of February 2011 to start a pay TV service. Icasa simply tells me that ''because of the reasons stated'' by Super 5 Media, ''Icasa resolved to grant the company a six month extension''.

ALSO READ: Super 5 Media self-destructs.
ALSO READ: Super 5 Media's ''complete state of collapse''.

BREAKING. Super 5 Media completely collapses: ''Everybody's running away from this thing!''

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South Africa's hope for a third pay TV operator - Super 5 Media - is fading as Super 5 Media fired all its remaining staff, is sinking under a massive amount of debt and is self-destructing in a massive corporate meltdown. ''Everybody's running away from this thing!'' an insider who used to work for Super 5 Media told me, who is now referring to everyone who worked at Super 5 Media as having used to work there. ''It's absolutely over. I don't see any way they [Super 5 Media] can recover from this,'' he said.

''Tian du Pisanie has sortof disappeared,'' he said when I asked about Tian du Pisanie who used to be a shareholder and director of Super 5 Media who don't respond to any media enquiries at all. ''Nobody told us anything.'' Mandla Ngobo, the former Super 5 Media CEO who left in March but was - according to my sources - asked back to ''handle the retrenchments'' - has also not responded to my voicemails and repeated attempts for comment.

A Super 5 Media source told me the remaining ''about 40 or so'' Super 5 Media workers all got handed retrenchment letters. ''Super 5 Media is just a shell. It's all that's left,'' another disillusioned and longtime employee told me. Another insider told me that according to him ''Super 5 Media doesn't look salvageable''. ''A tremendous amount of infighting, directionless leadership, management clashes and protracted squabbles and uncertaintly killed Super 5 Media. There's no chance that anything will happen by the time our licence runs out.'' Super 5 Media (formerly Telkom Media that sunk R471 million into the startup venture before Shenzhen Media SA took it over) will forfeit its licence by September if it doesn't start a viable pay TV service by then.

ALSO READ: It's over: Super 5 Media finally self-destructs.
ALSO READ: Super 5 Media's ''implosion'' could mean the end of its pay TV pipe dream.

BREAKING. It's over! Super 5 Media finally self-destructs: Wannabee pay TV operator fires everyone, internet and telephones cut off.

It's finally completely over for Super 5 Media (formerly Telkom Media) who got a licence from the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) to start a pay TV service in South Africa but has now completely imploded with all remaining staff who now got fired and the Centurion building's internet and telephone lines that got cut off.

Last week I told you RIGHT HERE about Super 5 Media's ''complete state of collapse'' and the harrowing things the few remaining employees and ex-employees were telling me. Now Super 5 Media has fired all the remaining employees. Where is Super 5 Media shareholder and director Tian du Pisanie? ''Tian du Pisanie has disappeared,'' a Super 5 Media source told me. Although Mandla Ngobo who was the Super 5 Media CEO is no longer with the company and left in March he has, as I've been told, ''tasked to deal with the retrenchments''. Mandla Ngobo has not yet returned my call which went straight to voicemail.

Super 5 Media insiders I spoke to said they're scared that they're not going to get paid. Most are highly upset. ''Everything is coming undone. It looks as if its all over,'' said one. ''Very bad. Very bad how they're handling all of this. Everything's a massive mess. Super 5 Media's done. Nothing works anymore. No phones, no internet, nothing,'' said another who just got a basic typed out retrenchment letter without even a signature.

Super 5 Media's ''complete state of collapse'', ''implosion'' could signal the end of its pay TV pipe dream.

Super 5 Media, formerly Telkom Media - that received a licence but made several false promises of starting a pay TV service in South Africa - is in a ''complete state of collapse'', ''basically now just an empty shell'' and ''breaking up like an iceberg over the past few months before our eyes''. So says disillusioned former, and disillusioned current (and sad!) employees of the Centurion based company that had dreams of becoming one of the new pay TV operators in the country. Meanwhile Super 5 Media refuse to respond – if it is that there's even still anybody left to pick up a phone.

Super 5 Media as I've told you RIGHT HERE exactly a month ago, is simply not responding in any way to media enquiries and is on the verge of losing its licence that was granted to it by the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) way back in 2007. Super 5 Media which is 75% owned by Shenzhen Media must start a viable pay TV service by the end of September 2010 or lose its licence permanently – which as things stands now, will most likely happen. Millions of rands has been sunk into this once optimistic venture over the past four years with Super 5 Media now having virtually nothing to show for it. Telkom Media was once primed by industry experts as the frontrunner to be the first rival of those granted Icasa licences to start a viable pay TV business as competition for the then-incumbent MultiChoice. Not only did On Digital Media (ODM) start its TopTV service in May to claim this honour, but Super 5 Media is languishing in a debilitating and self-destructive void of inoperability while it has been sucking up countless millions over the past few years without discernably moving any closer to providing any tangible pay TV product launch(es) - despite hollow promises.

Repeated, ongoing attempts to get comment from Super 5 Media are still unsuccessful. Former workers who were fired, took voluntary severance packages the last few months in the umpteenth shedding of workers since Telkom Media became Super 5 Media. A few who are not sure if they still have work (since they were told not to come in to work anymore) tells me Super 5 Media is ''basically now just an empty shell'' and that it seems – according to one worker who left very recently – ''that Super 5 Media is in a complete state of collapse''. Another former worker said the company has basically ''let everyone go. There's very little left. There's very little actual people left. The last few months Super 5 Media has basically been one protracted implosion on every conceivable level.'' Yet another former Super 5 Media worker said, ''It's sad. It seems like the end. There's not enough left [at Super 5 Media] to really do anything with anymore, really. Basically everyone and everything is gone.''

ALSO READ: With retrenchments happening at Super 5 Media, is this the end of its wannabe pay TV operator dream?
ALSO READ: Failure . . . again! Super 5 Media misses its promised June starting date.
ALSO READ: Yawn. Super 5 Media misses its May launch date. Now promises to start in June.

With retrenchments happening, is this the end of wannabe pay TV operator Super 5 Media's dimming dream?

Is the end looming for the struggling Super 5 Media (formerly Telkom Media, before Telkom sold its share to Shenzhen Media SA) and its increasingly dimming dream of starting a pay TV service?

I hear that Super 5 Media is letting people go. Of course, all my attempts to talk to somebody there to verify this, is falling on deaf ears. Nobody at Not-so-Super 5 Media is returning any email or voicemail left for the obviously struggling and super secretive company. Super 5 Media is not reacting to any media enquiries, while the company is now facing doom: Super 5 Media has to start broadcasting and making use of its pay TV licence that it got from the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) in 2007 by the end of September 2010 or lose it.

As I've chronicled here time and again, Not-so-Super 5 Media has made umpteenth empty promises - even just this year to start in February, then March, then May, then June and now . . . nothing. Radio silence. Now they're apparently also letting the last of the last workers go with voluntary severance packages after the previous round last year which also saw Super 5 Media shed workers. Of course I can't ask Super 5 Media what's going on because they don't reply or answer the phone. Yet they want to do pay TV. Maybe Super 5 Media should start with the telegraph. Or the grammophone. Or simpler yet . . .smoke signals?

Super 5 Media, if they at all still have any intention of launching any kind of credible pay TV service of any kind in South Africa, needs to communicate (even if you severed ties with your spokesperson last year). Talk. Tap out morse code, even if its an SOS. Send that smoke signal.  The South African journalists covering television are vigilantly looking for a sign. Any sign . . .

ALSO READ: Failure . . . again. Super 5 Media again missed its self set starting date of 1 June 2010.
ALSO READ: Yawn. Super 5 Media misses May; now promises June as its ''new starting date.

FAILURE! (AGAIN) Super 5 Media once again misses its own starting date to launch a pay TV platform in South Africa.

Super 5 Media has once again NOT launched its pay TV platform yesterday on June 1 as it said it would, and is currently hiding away and not speaking to anybody or responding to media enquiries.

I've lost count as to how many times Super 5 Media has promised to start, had the date roll by, to then simply come up with a new date. Super 5 Media has lost all credibility within the local TV industry after it has - in only this year so far - promised to start its pay TV service in February, then May, then June - and has now also missed that date.

I called the troubled Super 5 Media several times yesterday and sent numerous email requests. This morning I phoned again and during the afternoon. No response. Shenzhen Media SA is the majority shareholder in Super 5 Media after Telkom sold their share and the name changed from Telkom Media to Super 5 Media.

Who knows what date Super 5 Media will dream up next. July? September? Just like The Bible Code, the Mayan 2012 calendar, Nostradamus and prophecies predicting the end of the world, Super 5 Media's self-imposed starting date remains more massive myth than actual fact - and then, when it eventually rolls around, constantly keeps getting pushed always further into a fake new future.

Yawn. Another month, another promise: Super 5 Media now looking to June to start its pay TV service.

Super 5 Media (formerly Telkom Media after which Telkom disinvested its 75% shareholding and sold it to Shenzhen Media) is now saying it plans to start its pay TV service in June.

Yawn. Super 5 Media has very little credibility left and it seems to be just more promises and promises. Hardly anybody in the TV industry believes anything Super 5 Media says anymore, just a few weeks ago Super 5 Media said it was going to start in May when it became evident that TopTV was definitely about to launch.

Now Super 5 Media is throwing titbits out there that it's on course to launch come June, and start out with 5 TV channels and also initiate an internet service provider operation so that it can stream TV as part of an internet protocol television (IPTV) operation just like MultiChoice's brilliant new DStv on Demand service.

Of the once sterling reputation that Telkom Media kicked off its licencing application with the Independent Communication Authority of South Africa (Icasa) for a pay TV licence in South Africa,  there is basically nothing left. The company that was the frontronner to be first to start a comprehensive pay TV business in South Africa and become MultiChoice's first competition, languished the past few years as construction on a broadcasting centre was put on hold, talented headhunted TV industry professionals eventually gave up and left, and most of the rest got fired last year. All of that happened after Telkom Media, now Shenzhen Media soaked up millions with basically nothing to show for it.