SuperSport and Cricket South Africa's T20 League joint venture derails as CSA says it will still try to mount the T20 with SuperSport that will try to secure the broadcasting rights.

SuperSport and Cricket South Africa's (CSA) announced joint venture in June to establish a new, annual T20 cricket tournament has imploded and comes after 2017's botched attempt to establish this new tournament.

CSA and SuperSport announced in June that they would form a new company, Newco, in which CSA would be the majority shareholder and both contributing capital to fund the new venture.

That plan has now derailed with SuperSport announcing that it has dumped the proposed joined venture with CSA to do the T20 tournament. If CSA pulls the T20 off on its own - scheduled for November 2018 - SuperSport would however still be interested in acquiring broadcasting rights to it.

"This is unfortunate. We reached an in-principle agreement with CSA regarding co-ownership of this event in June this year," says Gideon Khobane, SuperSport CEO.

"Since then, the parties have been engaged in amicable discussions regarding the details of the proposed relationship. We have used our best endeavours to reach consensus with CSA around that shareholding model, but this has unfortunately not happened. The discussions on the in-principle shareholding agreement terminated on 23 July 2018."

"We have therefore decided to discontinue negotiations about shareholding. We are, however engaged in constructive discussions with CSA regarding the broadcast of the event."

DAILY TV NEWS ROUND-UP. Today's interesting TV stories to read from TVwithThinus - 5 October 2017.

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

■ SuperSport allegedly grabbed the T20 Global League cricket rights for a discounted $5.8 million.
But SuperSport on Wednesday said no deal has been signed and that it remains in discussions with Cricket South Africa (CSA).
According to reports, the initial ticket price of $10 million is lower since SuperSport has "increased expenditure" to set everything up at short notice. Cricket South Africa (CSA) allegedly also had to tone down and cut down on the costs of the tournament. Haroon Lorgat got fired as CSA CEO last week after his failure to get foreign broadcasters to sign on.
- ESPN reports an announcement will be made on Thursday and that Cricket South Africa will look to see how the cash-strapped SABC can be accomodated.

■ MultiChoice Nigeria, StarTimes and other pay-TV providers shocked at the unilateral tax relief given to new competitor TStv.
Even Nigeria's corrupt National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) is dumbstruck, saying the minister of information and culture "made that announcement. He is the one that can explain better".

■ Ordinary Zambian TV viewers still in the dark about the country's failed DTT switch-over process.
Zambia was supposed to complete the switch to digital terrestrial television (DTT) by 1 October 2017 but hasn't.

■ In a world without TV, what do we call TV?
We continue to call them "TV shows" even though a larger number of programming isn't being watched on actual TV sets.

■ Ugly TV tower loses its babies.
The tallest building in the Czech capital, Prague, is without its landmark babies - now teenagers - for the first time in 16 years.

■ TV censorship alive and kicking in Hong Kong.
Censorship overdrive as words and images are censored out, similar to what is happening in Africa.

■ Local TV station, Royal TV, in Rwanda has shut down.
50 out of jobs after loss-making TV channel is closed down after just over a year.

■ Australia's other TV channels want out of its local drama content quotas.
Wants Australia's public broadcaster, ABC, to be responsible for local content and they also want to completely get rid of having to do original children's programming.

■ Entertainment Weekly is moving from East to West.
The magazine is relocating its New York headquarters and staff to Los Angeles.

■ FX's John Landgraf pens an open letter about Silicon Valley's obsession with Netflix and Apple.
"Wall Street is wrong about the bets it is not placing on the future of the strongest TV brands. People still go to HBO, Showtime, AMC, Starz, BET, Nat Geo and numerous networks for a great new original series".

■ HBO's CEO on Netflix's massive content spend: "More is not better, only better is better".
HBO says the pay-TV channel will continue to "spend what we need to spend" to keep up its reputation for prestige programming.

■ Men earn 9% more at the BBC than women.
If this is the gender pay gap at the BBC, how much bigger is it at the SABC?