TV NEWS ROUND-UP. Today's interesting TV stories to read from TVwithThinus - 4 April 2018.

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

■ The BBC says younger viewers in the United Kingdom now watched more Netflix than the BBC and fears being "overtaken by competitors" as on-demand viewing grows. While the BBC is concerned, South Africa's SABC is doing very little although it's facing a similar crisis.

■ Swaziland's minister of information Dumisani Ndlangamandla wants the board of Swaziland's Television Authority (STVA - that country's state-run broadcaster - to resign over the appointment of Bongani Dlamini as Swazi TV CEO who's contract ended December 2017 but who is still in the job.


■ Nigeria's trashy TStv, fraught with lies and fraud, is now allegedly, again starting decoders sales after multiple postponed dates.
The trashy Sassy - that the decoder name - no longer looks like any of the stolen images TStv earlier used. Also the decoder is going to be sold from April without a satellite dish or LNB.
There's only 70 channels without the beIN Sports channels TStv pirated along with others. And gone is the WiFi, internet and free data that was promised - Sassy isn't capable of it. Nigerian consumers buy this trash at their own peril!


■ Zambia's corruption-laced Topstar venture between its state-run broadcaster ZNBC and China's StarTimes is criticised by TV stations over heavily inflated transmission fees.
Of course this was going to happen, but the Zambian government didn't care. Now TV channels are furious over the botched migration to digital terrestrial television (DTT) in Zambia, accusing TopStar of being both a signal distributor and a content provider.
- The shocking Topstar deal is one of the biggest financial scandal in modern-day Zambia, says the anti-corruption watchdog organisation, the Southern Africa Network Against Corruption (Sanac).

■ France's 24-hour TV news channel, France24 launches in Kenya and will be available as a free-to-air TV channel - the first international TV news channel to be available freely in the East African country.

MultiChoice won't be hiking DStv fees in Southern African countries Zimbabwe and Swaziland after its latest DStv price increase coming to South Africa from April.

MultiChoice won't be hiking DStv fees in the Southern African countries of Zimbabwe and Swaziland after its latest DStv price hike that is coming for South Africa's DStv subscribers from April.

While South Africa's rand is a stronger currency against the dollar and has been more resilient against the greenback that the currency of several other African nations, MultiChoice Africa decreased the DStv subscription fees in the past few months in several other African countries.

In contrast MultiChoice South Africa keeps increasing overall DStv subscription fees in South Africa every year - its biggest subscriber base market.

Now for 2018, it appears so far as if South Africa is going to be the only Southern African market in which MultiChoice operates its DStv satellite pay-TV service, where it will be upping its monthly DStv subscription fees this year.

MultiChoice Zimbabwe and MultiChoice Swaziland have both been very quick to respond that in these countries DStv subscribers won't see a similar increase in 2018, with more Southern African nations - Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique and Zambia - who could possibly follow.

Swazi Observer reporter Fortune Ndlangamandla blatantly plagiarised and stole large chunks of my orginal reporting by stealing through a copy-and-paste job what I wrote first about South Africa's DStv subscriber fee increase, but did add an originally sourced response from MultiChoice Swaziland saying it won't be hiking DStv fees there.

Dumsile Masuku, MultiChoice Swaziland publicist said about MultiChoice South Africa's DStv price hike that "What they do is irrelevant to us. We know nothing about the price hikes".

In Zimbabwe DStv actually lowered DStv subscription fees due to DStv subscribers struggling extremely with its trash currency, Zimbabwe's reserve bank making it basically impossible to pay DStv subscription fees, and the launch of rival Kwesé TV from Econet Media.

MultiChoice Zimbabwe told told TechZim that DStv subscription fees will remain the same in 2018.

"While we can confirm that Multichoice South Africa will increase DStv prices in South Africa, it’s worth noting that MultiChoice Africa is a seperate business unit that operates independently."

"In the past two years, we haven’t increased DStv subscription prices for our customers in Zimbabwe – and in fact, we’ve decreased some package prices and added exciting premium content across various packages as part of our priority to put customers in the heart of everything we do."

"Should there be any changes to DStv subscription prices in Zimbabwe, we will inform our customers accordingly."

DAILY TV NEWS ROUND-UP. Today's interesting TV stories to read from TVwithThinus - 16 October 2017.

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


■ Turns out that The Orville is better than Star Trek: Discovery.
Seth MacFarlane's "gushing valentine to Star Trek" is "everything Star Trek: Discovery is not: cheerful, pleasant to behold and with an emphasis on cerebral storytelling".
- The Orville has started to focus more on stories and is striking a better balance between story and humour.
- The Orville needs more episodes like episode 6 "Krill".
- With each episode The Orville starts to more deftly juxtapose comedy and social commentary.


■ Bloodied Boulevard: How the Harvey Weinstein sexual predator scandal exposed Hollywood's dirty secret.
Harvey Weinstein is just one example of a wider and current problem Hollywood deliberately ignores.
- Lawyer Lisa Bloom admits she was wrong to represent the sexual predator.
- Amazon Jeff Bezos says Roy Price is suspended "indefinitely" says Amazon is reviewing the two projects it has with The Weinstein Company.
- Australian actress Natalie Mendoza on how Harvey Weinstein groped her.
- Jane Fonda tells Amanpour on CNN International about Harvey Weinstein: "I'm ashamed I didn't say anything".


- MUST WATCH: Tina Brown on BBC Newsnight about Harvey Weinstein.
- MUST WATCH:  Emma Thompson on BBC Newsnight slams Harvey Weinstein; insider revelations about showbiz.


■ Utter silence from the fashion industry on the sexual predator Harvey Weinstein scandal. Why?


■ MUST READ: Editor-at-large Kim Masters at The Hollywood Reporter details at the Columbia Journalism Review the threat legal letters she got in trying to report the sexual harassment allegations against Harvey Weinstein and Amazon's Roy Price and how The Hollywood Reporter didn't want her story.


■ MUST READ: Harvey Weinstein's fixer Fabrizio Lombardo says he didn't "hunt" for the sexual predator.

■ MUST READ: Pack of hyenas": How all those around Harvey Weinstein became the sexual predator's enablers.
"A system of abuse involving some of the most famous people on the planet, in which success was measured not in awards or fame or box office revenue, but in silence".

■ Amazon is spending billions on Amazon Prime Video and investors need more clarity on what Amazon plans to get out of it.
"Amazon doesn't seem to have a coherent strategy for what programming it should be serving up".

■ Namibian citizens furious over Namibia's Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) that wants to "force" them to pay TV licenses.
Growing storm as Namibians vent their fury over Namibia's public broadcaster that doesn't have a right to force them to pay for a TV set that doesn't belong to them. Namibians slam the National Broadcasting Corporation to improve its pathetic programming.

■ YouTube lifts its restrictions on banning Swaziland's bare breast dancers.
Reed dance videos no longer blocked after afterbare-breasted women protest: "My breasts are not inappropriate".

■ The shocking implosion of Cricket South Africa's T20GL.
South Africa's national embarrassment after Cricket South Africa (CSA) and Haroon Lorgat messed up the empty promise of the T20 Global League, the SABC's "contribution" to that, how CSA demanded enormous fees from SuperSport, and how whatever broadcast deals might be made in future will be for much smaller amounts.

■ After Syfy cancelled Dark Matter the plan was for MGM to pick it up for a Stargate cross-over.
The science fiction drama series seen on The Universal Channel (DStv 117) was abruptly cancelled a few months ago.
The plan was to do a 4th season on the new Stargate Command streaming service and to link the show to the Stargate franchise. Unfortunately the contracts for the production's sets and cast members ran out because the deal-making took to long, so theres no chance of a fourth season for Dark Matter.

■ What kind of journalism should the BBC do and not do?
"There have always been issues and events that the BBC is less likely to cover than its commercial news rivals".

■ Game of Thrones led to a surge of subscribers for Sky in the United Kingdom.
Dragons brought the pay-TV customers to the yard.

■ MultiChoice Nigeria dragged to court over allegedly showing a Yoruba film it didn't have the rights to.
DStv Nigeria says it bought and showed the Yoruba soap operas Ayeloja, Owo ida and Ofin as 26-episode series it acquired from Frank Dallas Communications but never showed the film Aroni Rogun Matidi.

DAILY TV NEWS ROUND-UP. Today's interesting TV stories to read from TVwithThinus - 11 October 2017.

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


■ Sexual predator Harvey Weinstein over the weekend begged:
"I am desperate for your help," he wrote to Hollywood executives in a private email, "my board is thinking of firing me".
- Harvey Weinstein's name dropped from the credits from all shows; TWC (The Weinstein Company) even considering a total name change to try and save the production and distribution company.
- Another actress comes forward to say Harvey Weinstein humiliated her in a London hotel room wearing only a bathrobe.
- MUST READ: The New Yorker on how rapist Harvey Weinstein sexually abused women.

- Awkward as Ronan Farrow tells Rachel Maddow why NBC News passed and apparently didn't want to do his Harvey Weinstein story.
- Also tells how he was personally threatened with a lawsuit by Harvey Weinstein.
- NBC insiders are livid that NBC News president Noah Oppenheim killed the Harvey Weinstein story.

- Fascinating article from The Guardian in which 20 of Hollywood's high-profile actors and directors remain silent and go "no comment" when asked to speak about Harvey Weinstein.
- Stupid Donna Karan dig herself a hole by responding that "women are asking for it".
- Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelie Jolie say Harvey Weinstein sexually assaulted them.
-  Yet another woma, Louisette Geiss, shares a Harvey Weinstein masturbating story.
- At The Weinstein Company (TWC) staffers "are reeling"; TWC future now in doubt.


■ Hilarie Burton says Ben Affleck groped her on MTV's TRL in 2003.
"I was a kid," said Hilarie Burton.


■ If you watch 1 of these 4 types of TV shows,
you're highly likely to be a narcissist.

■ 2017's TV lessons:
"In the age of Trump comfort food TV is working".

■ And another take on the same theme: The Golden Age of Sad TV.

■ Swaziland's state-controlled TV, Swazi TV, censors a public protest.
Two Swazi TV reporters went to go and cover the public protest by government workers but the Swazi TV CEO summoned them and killed the story.

■ Oprah Winfrey went to the bank for the first time in 29 years
to deposit a $2 million cheque. (And reveals she doesn't have an ATM PIN).

■ Kwesé TV has applied for a possible pay-TV licence in Swaziland.
Asked the Swaziland Communication Commission (SCCOM) in 2016 already for a licence. The excuse for Swaziland's delay as with everything to do with the country's struggling TV industry - is this time "the absence of a licensing framework".

■ "Don't end up disappointed" by TStv.
Nigeria's new pay-TV operator busy with fraud and lying about TV channels and content it didn't acquire legally has "undertones" that's disturbing. and TStv "should also stop making false promises to would-be subscribers".

■ Riverdale showrunner promises a "sexier" second season with more drama and danger.
The second season will continue right after the shooting of Archie's dad.

■ In Zimbabwe, CBZ also pulls the plug on DStv Zimbabwe payments for MultiChoice Zimbabwe.

■ With Marvel's Inhumans now also on TV as a new drama series on M-Net (DStv 101)
the question is asked how many Marvel series is too many?

■ Millennials are at odds with their parents over binge-watching TV.
Older people strill watch TV the traditional way, while young adults watch Netflix, Amazon and streaming services.

With broadcasting bill still not passed after almost a year, Swaziland hopes to create a Swaziland Broadcasting Corporation.

Swaziland hopes to establish the Swaziland Broadcasting Corporation (SBC) - modeled after South Africa's South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) - but nearly a year after the first draft of the bill was created and submitted in November 2016, Swaziland's parliament has failed to pass it.

Modeled after South Africa's struggling public broadcaster, the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), Swaziland's languishing broadcasting bill hopes to restructure the tiny Southern African nation's likewise struggling state broadcasting offering into a more cohesive service unit.

If passed into law, it will create the Swaziland Broadcasting Corporation (SBC) and amalgamate the operations, services and resources of to Swaziland state broadcasting services into one national public broadcasting service.

Swaziland currently has the state-run and heavily censored Radio Swaziland, and the state-run Swazi TV channel that is also rife with government censorship and that is being run by the struggling Swaziland Television Authority.

With small and dwindling audiences, Swaziland's government has done very little to remain relevant in the public broadcasting space as Swazi viewers are switching on to other television services.

More and more Swazi citizens are getting their television from pay-TV services like MultiChoice's DStv offered by MultiChoice Swaziland.

The Chinese StarTimes Media is in a big push to roll out its pay-TV service in Swaziland, as is the new Econet Media with its Kwesé TV.

There's also been a surge of Swazi's buying once-off South African activated free-to-air OpenView HD (OVHD) satellite TV decoders that's available in South Africa but taken across the border where it's resold in Swaziland in black market trade.

So far Swaziland's minister of information, communication and technology (ICT), Dumisani Christopher Ndlangamandla, has failed to table the bill in Swaziland's parliament, a year after the first draft was submitted to parliament.

Dumisani Christopher Ndlangamandla, already promised the creation and establishment of the Swaziland Broadcasting Corporation by the end of 2015 - a deadline that came and went.