IN IMAGES. Look inside Hisense South Africa's first-ever premium brand store in Cape Town and the biggest TV in Africa

by Thinus Ferreira

In November 2025, Hisense South Africa opened its first-ever premium brand store in South Africa at the Canal Walk mall in Century City, Cape Town - with plans to open some more soon - and a few days ago, I went for a guided store tour.

Hisense SA's Canal Walk store is beautiful inside and for the brand represents a milestone in Hisense's 29-year presence in South Africa.

Hisense SA also has a factory in Atlantis that employs more than 1 000 people and produces TV sets and home appliances for both South Africa and export markets, including the United Kingdom.

You won't get lost in Hisense SA's premium brand store but you can easily get lost by being transported into feeling and seeing how the TVs and appliances would not just "fit" physically, but fit experientially into your living space.

Hisense SA's Cape Town store has been designed as an interactive retail space and showcases the company's latest connected technologies like AI-powered appliances, mini-LED televisions, laster projections - and yes - even a robo-woof. A bit more about that later.

When it opened in November, Luna Nortje, Hisense SA deputy general manager, said that the Hisense SA store is a celebration of the company’s investment in local manufacturing, skills development and sustainable job creation.

"This store allows customers to experience locally made quality up close while supporting a value chain that creates jobs and transfers skills right here at home."

Besides interactive product demonstrations, it also showcases Africa's largest TV: The 116 inch UX RGB MiniLED which is made in Atlantis.

"From our Atlantis factory to our new flagship store at Canal Walk and now the Tevolution Museum, Hisense is building more than a brand, it’s building a legacy of accessible innovation."

The really wonderful Alex Chen, Hisense SA marketing and brand manager, showed me through Hisense's premium store and how it looks inside.

And say hello to ... TechBud!

Hisense's 4-legged robot dog TechBud also calls the Hisense SA premium store home, and is, well, incredible. 

I got an in-store demonstration of just some of what TechBud is capable of. TechBud performs tricks and interacts with shoppers, with the help of his human handler (and Wifi remote controller).

TechBud also runs really fast. And TechBud's little eye is like a spider's eye. 

While TechBud can't bark, imagine your home security system not being static, mounted cameras but TechBud roaming around outside, bringing you different, multi-camera angles of everything it sees.

Samsung adds Vision AI to its premium TV line-up

by Vlad Savov, Bloomberg News

Samsung is expanding its artificial intelligence push with a new suite of enhancements for its premium TV lineup under the branding of Vision AI.

The company's AI-powered screens will be able to search online for information about what’s being displayed - such as identifying an actor or product - translate in real-time and generate personalised background images, it said in a statement from CES in Las Vegas.

A built-in AI processor on the top TV models will also analyse content, boost colours and contrast and optimize audio.

"Samsung sees TVs not as one-directional devices for passive consumption but as interactive, intelligent partners that adapt to your needs," SW Yong, head of the company's visual display business, said in the statement.

The South Korean company, which has been the world's biggest TV seller for close to two decades, said it will also collaborate with Microsoft and Alphabet's Google as it expands its Vision AI suite with additional capabilities from partners.

As millions continue to watch on analogue South Africa's deadline for switch to digital TV is pushed out again

by Thinus Ferreira

South Africa's latest switch-off deadline of 31 December 2024 for analogue transmitters in the country's long-delayed migration process to digital terrestrial television (DTT) has inevitably been pushed out yet again, now to 31 March 2025.

Millions more TV households who either haven't had their free set-box box (STB) installed yet by the government as well as the "missing middle" who earn more than R3 500 and must buy one - although none exist in retail - must still make the switch.

If these households in the four remaining provinces of Gauteng, the Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape - collectively representing more than 50% of South Africa's population - suddenly lose their TV signals, they will be cut off from news and information. 

It will also prove disastrous for South Africa's broadcasters like the SABC, eMedia's e.tv and community TV channels like Cape Town TV (CTV) who will experience further debilitating viewership losses, with diminished ratings impacting advertising rates, and in turn cratering their ad revenue.

Around 174 analogue transmitters across these provinces are still on.

On Thursday evening Solly Malatsi, South Africa's 12th minister of communications and digital technologies dealing with the issue of the country's DTT transition, announced that the switch-off is once again being pushed out.

The deadline of 31 December is moved out by another three months to 31 March 2025.

The SABC asked the government for another 12 months' delay until 31 December. It's not clear what extension eMedia asked the department for. eMedia declined to say what period it wanted the deadline date to be pushed out by when asked in a media query. 

"This extension will ensure that as many indigent households as possible will enjoy their right to access broadcast services," says Solly Malatsi.

He said that the department "communicated this decision to the broadcasters and relevant stakeholders" in a meeting on Thursday "and commit to continue working together with them on this project".

"Their commitment to ensuring that the free-to-air households migrate is critical to the success of this programme."

"The postponement of the analogue switch-off deadline recognises the considerable delays that have plagued the Broadcasting Digital Migration (BDM) project since its inception and provides the necessary relief that makes provision for more time to migrate as many South African as possible before the final switch-off."

According to Malatsi, he has "directed the director-general to implement consequence management for any individuals responsible for failures within the department".

Around 467 000 poor households who have registered for the government-subsidised set-top boxes have not yet had these installed with STBs gathering dust in locked South African Post Offices and Sentech warehouses.

"There is no denying that the Broadcasting Digital Migration project has dragged on for far too long, costing the government R1.23 billion for dual illumination, which refers to the simultaneous transmission of both analogue and digital signals," Malatsi says.

No money has been budgeted for dual illumination for 2025 to keep analogue transmitters on and it isn't clear where the department will get the money from for the next three-month extension.

Since 2015 South Africa has spent over R12 billion on the switch to DTT.

"This process is costly and cannot be sustained indefinitely. More so, at a time when the fiscus is under extreme pressure," Solly Malatsi says.

"Our immediate focus between now and the end of March 2025 is to aggressively accelerate the delivery and installation of set-top boxes to indigent households to ensure that as many households as possible are prepared for the switch-off."

ALSO READ: DTT: South African TV's R12 billion, 496 000 undone, 'unmitigated disaster'

SA TV 2021: A shockwave year in television filled with loss, lockdown and an octopus that won an Oscar.

by Thinus Ferreira

During South African television's tumultuous 2021 - bearing witness to shocking unrest and looting, neverending loadshedding and an unfolding Covid-crisis - the one reassuring constant was TV soaps and telenovelas like Uzalo, with the nation's nightly collection of comforting primetime series stretching from Generations to Isono that continued to provide a sense of uninterrupted assurance and "normalcy" in a world seemingly gone mad.

In probably the worst year on record for South Africa's TV and film industry - rocked by a shockwave of thousands of permanent and temporary job losses as work evaporated, hundreds of deaths due to Covid-19, as well as countless and repeated Covid-19 production shutdowns across multiple series under Lockdown Level 4 - 2021's big unrecognised TV miracle is that the TV soap operas endured.

As the industry was upended behind-the-scenes, TV channels kept broadcasting new episodes nightly during 2021 with its escapist local mix of fantasy, conflict, weddings and scandals, that continued to enthral a combined audience of millions of viewers across Southern Africa.

In 2021, South Africans watched Squid Game on Netflix, Devilsdorp on Showmax and welcomed House of Zwide on e.tv. 

Viewers sat transfixed before eNCA, Newzroom Africa and SABC News to see former president Jacob Zuma being arrested and going to jail, and how South Africans ransacked shopping malls. 

They huddled together in front of the soft glow of their TV screens when president Cyril Ramaphosa beckoned for yet another "family meeting".

Love Island South Africa on M-Net flopped but The Bachelorette SA was more successful. The Real Housewives of Durban and Survivor South Africa: Immunity Island (forced to film in South Africa on the Eastern Cape coast) were hits. 

South Africans got their Friday episode of 7de Laan on SABC2 back (that also reached 5000 episodes). 

While kykNET's new on-air rebranding was more successful, SABC3's rebranding to "S3" saw the channel's already anaemic ratings only fall further this year while its Isidingo replacement, The Estate, failed in luring the viewers it should and likely on borrowed time. 

uBettina Wethu (South Africa's Ugly Betty-version) wasn't the success it could have been. Showmax tried Temptation Island SA as both it and Netflix added further local South African content to their catalogues.

MultiChoice's Showmax launched its first South African telenovela, The Wife, but the most expensive South African drama series yet produced, Blood Psalms, missed its October debut and was pushed to February 2022 because the department of trade, industry and competition failed to pay the millions due to the show in the country's broken film rebate scheme.

MultiChoice introduced DStv subscribers to Korean telenovelas ("K-drama") with tvN, kept losing DStv Premium subscribers, while M-Net brought pay-TV subscribers Harry and Meghan sit-down talk with Oprah.

The SABC that turned 85 completed its retrenchment plan getting rid of hundreds of workers after which the public broadcaster once again became embroiled in serious allegations of SABC News editorial interference. 

In 2021 fewer people than ever (down to 21% bothered to still pay a SABC TV Licence with plans to scrap it altogether and replace it with a new type of tax.

The SABC officially launched SABC Sport as a TV channel, while SuperSport did its best to try and bring live sports back this year and branched out into more school sports coverage.

Britbox SA and eMedia's eVOD both launched as two new video streaming services in South Africa in 2021 while ViacomCBS Networks Africa abruptly cancelled its MTV Africa Music Awards it tried to revive this year. 

The M-Net City channel changed to Me, Glow TV was removed from Openview but had to be returned after a court case, and StarSat shed more TV channels this year. 

The long-delayed completion of the switch from analogue to digital terrestrial television (DTT) broadcasting in South Africa was yet again postponed, with new warnings that suddenly switching off TV signals to millions of viewers who don't have set-top boxes to receive the new signals, will damage South Africa's TV ratings system.

Meanwhile worsening Eskom blackouts continued to have a debilitating impact during 2021 on TV ratings, damaging all broadcasters and advertisers with loadshedding that wiped millions of TV households from the national viewership data.

Moja Love (DStv 157) - which had to suspend Jub Jub on Uyajola 9/9 as its most-watched show after rape allegations - and Mzansi Magic (DStv 161) were the two most-watched pay-TV channels in South Africa in 2021. 

SABC1 remained the most-watched free-to-air TV channel. More South African TV news reporters were attacked and robbed this year than ever before.

South African viewers lost FOX after 11 years, The Bold and the Beautiful (again) and weather presenters on eNCA and eNuus. The ratings for the 17th season of Idols on Mzansi Magic plunged as Somizi Mhlongo exited as a judge after serious allegations of physical abuse.

We lost Africa's most influential woman in television, MultiChoice's content boss Aletta Alberts, to Covid, as well as producer-actor Shona Ferguson in July, and an unending TV treasure chest list of names gone too soon who have enriched and who were deeply woven into the tapestry of South Africa's TV industry. 

We lost icons from Franz Marx to Shaleen Surtie-Richards, with calls that more must be done to support and protect South African artists and performers while the South African government for another year refused to make the Performers' Protection Amendment Bill (PPAB) a law that would ensure that actors are paid residuals for TV rebroadcasts.

We said goodbye to LIVE AMP on SABC1 after 25 seasons, as well as the beloved TV news anchor Noxolo Grootboom who read her final TV news bulletin with even Cyril Ramaphosa moving his national address out of the way so that the nation could watch her swansong first. 

Jeremy Maggs, Jane Dutton and Uveka Rangappa left eNCA with no goodbye. 

South Africa's TV and film industry and film lost at least 18 669 jobs (59%) over the past year due to Covid. 

And in-between the tumult, a little film on TV about a friendly South African octopus won an Oscar.

Coronavirus: As TV remains powerful while cinemas, print and events suffer during Covid-19 in South Africa, ad agency head Chris Botha cautions against knee-jerk reaction in favour of a long term view: 'Keep spending but adapt to where you're spending it'.

by Thinus Ferreira

While TV ratings surge and television remains the most powerful advertising medium in South Africa during the global Covid-19 pandemic, cinemas, print and eventing will suffer during the country's national lockdown period although influential ad agency head Chris Botha cautions against spending less but advising clients to rather look at spending the same amount of money but to adapt where they're spending their advertising rands.

TVwithThinus spoke with ad agency boss Chris Botha, group managing director at Park Advertising, who says that says "television remains the best medium to use because people watch TV a lot and it remains the highest penetrating medium in South Africa".

"Television remains powerful. It's how you use television that people need to be a bit more adaptable about."

"How you use it will change. You might focus a bit more on entertainment programmes, or daytime television to move away from sport. Sport is under a lot of pressure with there being no live sport at the moment."

"We believe that during the Covid-19 national lockdown people are going to be watching a lot more television that what they did before. So it's just a question of  'What are they watching?' that will change and 'When are they watching?' There will be more daytime viewing, more entertainment viewing, less sport viewing, and more TV news channel viewing - those are the big changes that we'll see."

Chris Botha says that "all of the children are at home at the moment with an extended school holiday. We always see an uptick in kids viewing during the school holidays and without a doubt we will see that again during this period".

"Kids programming - a lot of parents have their kids at home during a longer time period where they didn't plan to have kids at home. Now, in order to keep those kids entertained and occupied I think television and the internet will be powerful mediums for advertisers to use."

Chris Botha says "Cinema will suffer - chains like Ster-Kinekor and Nu Metro are closed".

"So cinema will take strain because in terms of release windows a lot of the good content has also been moved out to later during the year - for instance the James Bond movie has been moved out; there are a few other movies that have been moved out to a later date because they're worried about audiences".

"Similarly, the school holidays are always big for cinema because they release kids movies which now isn't happening."

"So I think the big kids movie in March was going to be Disney's Mulan and Mulan has also been moved out because of exactly this."

"Cinema will struggle. I think print will struggle as well  - a lot of people buy their newspapers in the shops. Because of Covid-19 the shops are empty, so fewer consumers are going to be buying newspapers and magazines. They're already struggling and now they're going to struggle even more."

"Outdoor isn't as directly measured so I don't think it will struggle as much," he says.

"The guys who are really going to take a hit are events. I feel deeply for event organising companies. With so many events being called off, I think event companies are going to take a lot of hits and I think we're going to see a lot of job losses and we're going to see a lot of companies close their doors."

"If they're not hosting events they're simply not making money and they're not making money at the moment."

"You need to have a long-term view," says Chris Botha. "Advertising spend is always a symptom of revenue. The more money you make, the more money you spend on advertising. I think as companies make less money they tend to look at that expense line of advertising first. So a lot of people are cutting."

"I would however like to tell people that there's a lot of research that's been proven that marketing in a recession helps a company and brand to gain market share. For you to have a big voice in your category is usually very difficult."

"However, if you do marketing during a downturn you actually gain more audience in the long run."

"My advice would be have a long term view. Let's not have a knee-jerk reaction in the short term. Keep the wheels turning. Keep going. Instead of spending less on advertising, rather look at spending the same amount of money but adapt to where you're spending it. Adaptability is absolutely key."

Apple set to join the video streaming TV wars as it gets ready to announce its original content plans at Monday's 'Show Time' event.

Apple is finally set to join the video streaming TV wars as Apple Inc. gets ready to announce its original content plans on Monday at its "Show Time" event.

Apple Inc. is joining the subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) race that will add yet another option for video content consumers globally and in a market like South Africa and Africa where video streaming services like MultiChoice's Showmax, Netflix South Africa, Amazon Prime Video,Viu, Cell C black, Acorn TV, TV2GO and others are battling it out to attract subscribers, with more waiting in the wings like Disney+

Apple sent out invitations to the press for a "special event" on 25 March it calls "Show Time" that will take place inside its Steve Jobs Theater at its Apple Park headquarters in Cupertino, California, strongly hinting that it will be about Apple's video content service.

Please join us for an Apple special event
at the Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino.

March 25, 2019
10:00 a.m.

The email played a short film reel countdown animation on opening. pic.twitter.com/a2COFjMIpA

— Matthew Panzarino (@panzer) March 11, 2019

Monday morning's event at 10:00 in California will be live-streamed globally from 19:00 South African time.

Apple has invested over $1 billion the past year in commissioning original TV shows, chasing Netflix and Amazon Studios is ramping up the production of TV series and attaching big name producers from Steven Spielberg to Oprah Winfrey.

Apple has already announced projects and investments in a flurry of over 20 brand-new scripted TV shows that will add to the avalanche of content on existing SVOD services and the TV channels carried on the services of traditional pay-TV operators.

Nobody knows exactly what Apple's video content streaming strategy is and whether Apple will announce a Netflix-like service for Apple TV or a pay-TV service, whether TV shows will be made available for free for users of Apple devices, or how its distribution will work - through its own apps or using existing pay-TV services and platforms.

If Apple is launching it's own streaming service, what will it look like, and how much will it cost?

Here is what Apple has already poured money into - and up until this point, Apple has not publicly released a single on-set still, show publicity photo, image teaser trailer or a second of footage of any of these TV series in development and in production:

Amazing Stories: A new reboot of the science fiction anthology series, again with Steven Spielberg as executive producers.
Are You Sleeping?: A crime series about podcasts of true crime cases with Octavia Spencer and with Reese Witherspoon as executive producers.
Calls: An adaptation of a short-form French series where the emphasis is on audio storytelling.
Central Park: An animated musical comedy.
Defending Jacob: A thriller-adaptation of William Landay's novel with Chris Evans.
Dickson: A growing-up series about the life of the poet Emily Dickinson, with Hailee Steinfeld.
For All Mankind: A science fiction series set in space from Ronald D. Moore.
Foundation: A science fiction series based on the novel series of Isaac Asimov, produced by David S. Goyer and Josh Friedman.
Home: A documentary series about exceptional homes.
Little America: An anthology series revolving around immigrants.
Little Voice: A romantic dramedy series with J.J. Abrams as executive producer.
Losing Earth: A series based on the story of Nathaniel Rich published in The New York Times magazine and as a book about the history of climate activism.
Magic Hour: A mystery series loosely based on the real-life story of Hilde Lysiak.
My Glory Was I Had Such Friends: Jennifer Garner and J.J. Abrams reteam for the first time after Alias for this series based on the life of Amy Silverstein.
Pachinko: A series spanning several generations following a Korean family, based on the novel by Min Jin Lee.
See: A science fiction drama series.
Shantaram: A series based on Gregory David Robert's novel about a man's life in Bombay.
Swagger: A drama series inspired by the life of basketball player Kevin Durant.
The Morning Show: A backstage drama series set behind-the-scenes at a fictional American morning show with Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon and Steve Carell.
Time Bandits: A reboot of the classic film by Terry Gilliam.
Untitled Brie Larson series: A drama series based on the life of the undercover CIA-agent Amaryllis Fox.
Untitled Colleen McGuinness series: A comedy series based on Curtis Sittenfeld's You Think It, I'll Say It short story collection.
Untitled Damien Chazelle series.
Untitled M. Night Shyamalan series: M. Night Shyamalan is the executive producer and will be writing the first episode of this thriller-series that will undoubtedly incorporate weird twists.
Untitled Oprah projects: Oprah Winfrey closed a multi-year partnership with Apple to produce an array of original content.
Untitled Snoopy series: Short-form animation series based on the dog character from Peanuts.
Untitled Richard Gere series: A drama series based on the Israeli show Nevelot.
Untitled Rob McElhenny and Charlie Day series: A comedy series revolving around a worker at a video game studio.
Untitled Simon Kinberg and David Weil series: A science fiction series.

TV NEWS ROUND-UP. Today's interesting TV stories to read from TVwithThinus - 3 January 2019.

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

■ Netflix begs people not to try, and then hurt themselves, with the new social-media 'Bird Box Challenge' that has gone viral.
It's based on the new Netflix horror movie, Bird Box, in which Sandra Bullock and other characters blindfold themselves to avoid seeing monsters taking the form of people's worst fears.

■ Why Nigeria's struggling TStv dumped Nigeria's NIGCOMSAT for Azercosmos in Azerbaijan.
After Nigeria's beleaguered satellite pay-TV operator TStv dumped NIGCOMSAT for satellite transponder services and is now partnering with Azercosmos as it tries to start again, TStv's chief operating officer, Benjamin Zidah, trashes NIGCOMSAT now slammed as a competitor and something that is "against business sense".

■ Carrie Ann Inaba is the permanent new addition to The Talk seen on 1Magic (DStv 103) and Mzansi Magic (DStv 161) replacing Julie Chen.

■ What Netflix is learning from its interactive Bandersnatch episode.
Where Netflix previously focused its data gathering on the ways users engaged with its content - what they watched, when, and for how long - this new data from its first live-action choose-your-own-adventure episode for adults, is indicative of real-world decisions like product preference, musical taste, and engagement with human behaviour.

■ The Hidden Beauty of Black Mirror: Bandersnatch.
In an interactive story where the character has no choice and the viewer makes all the choices to influence the outcome, the symbolism explained and how to try and get the best and correct ending where the character does get to make his own choice.

■ Bandersnatch: Is interactive television watching the way of the future?

■ EastEnders seen on BBC Brit (DStv 120) to introduce the British soap's first gay bar coming to Albert Square to better reflect London's diversity.

■ It's basically impossible to be a mom in TV news.
New American research finds women's decision to have kids is basically a career-ender if you work in television news as it's too hard to leave at a moment's notice to cover whatever breaking news is unfolding.

■ Is the end of Netflix's golden age in sight?
Netflix is facing competition from content suppliers, including video streaming rivals like Apple and Amazon Prime Video.

■ Thousands of kids continue to get injured - and die - from TV sets toppling over.

■ Attention-seeking Kenyan lawyer says TV channels in Kenya hire women as TV presenters based on their breasts.

■ Netflix censors and pulls an episode of Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj critical of Saudi Arabia.
Netflix damages its freedom of expression reputation and dumps an episode from its service that is critical of Saudi Arabia and crown prince Mohammed bin Salman responsible for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

■ Every American TV series that will be ending in 2019.
Goodbye Modern Family, Game of Thrones, Shadowhunters, Gotham and several more.

■ Lost Television: Meet the raiders of the lost British and African broadcasting archives.

■ Lusaka Magistrate's Court in Zambia sentences a man to 2 years in prison and hard labour for stealing a TV remote.

■ S24 starts in Uganda as a new streaming, business TV channel.

■ What Netflix's investment in Nigeria means.
The Mail & Guardian on whether - and how - Nollywood will benefit from Netflix.

■ A lot of the publicists and PR departments of South African TV channels and broadcasters are guilty of this.
The non-TV story of the day: How Donald Trump's White House won't even respond with a "no comment" to acknowledge media enquiries from journalists, and often simply has no response to questions although people are getting paid real money to handle media enquiries.

Democratic Alliance political party reveals ANC party is branding digital terrestrial TV set-top box messages as election marketing; says communications minister lied about new mid-2019 deadline from the ITU to complete digital migration.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) political party wants to know why a logo from the ANC political party and ANC election messaging is appearing on pamphlets encouraging South African to collect free, government-sponsored set-top boxes (STBs) - the decoders people need to watch digital terrestrial television (DTT) as part of the South African government's botched and long deyaled digital migration process from analogue to digital TV.

The DA's member of parliament, Marian Shinn and the party's shadow minister of telecommunications and postal services, on Sunday in a statement said the pamphlets "is a blatant abuse of taxpayers' money and must be stopped".

She also revealed that the department of communications' latest new deadline of June 2019, apparently instituted by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) after South Africa missed all of the other previous deadlines including the 17 June 2015 deadline, is apparently bogus.

"The minister of communications now claims that a new deadline of mid-2019 has been agreed to with the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a date that coincides with South Africa's next general election".

"Correspondence I have had with the ITU office in Geneva, shows that there is no 2019 deadline for South Africa," said Marian Shinn.

"A parliamentary question I submitted to the minister asking documentary proof of the 'new' deadline has not been answered," said Marian Shinn.

Marian Shinn says she has written to communications minister, Nomvula Mokonyane, the cabinet leader of the Broadcasting DigitalMigration (BDM) project of which the DTT set-top boxes are a component - and responsible for its marketing "to put an immediate stop to the flyers' distribution and have them destroyed".

"I have also written to the ANC National Executive Committee member, Dr Siyabonga Cwele, minister of telecommunications and postal services, who is responsible for the government entities procuring and distributing the decoders to demand an investigation within the ANC to determine who instigated the abuse of a government-funded project under his watch for election purposes and to hold these people to account."

STBs are currently being given out to poor South African households who have to prove that they're earning less than R3200 per month.

The much-delayed digital migration project aims to bring all broadcasting in South Africa from analogue to digital, freeing up spectrum bands to be used by mobile broadband products and services.

Various misguided political decisions, as suspicions over MultiChoice's alleged undue influence on the government's policy regarding conditional access (encryption) of the government-sponsored decoders, as well as drawn-out in-fighting and court battles between MultiChoice and e.tv, as well as other broadcasters and manufacturers, have delayed South Africa's DTT process for a decade.

New TV research finds that viewers are confused by the growing number of TV services, as the novelty of so many options for TV content is starting to wear off.

Are you starting to feel overwhelmed by the growing number of different pay-TV services, each with their own costs and each offering different shows, while you don't know where to really find and watch what?

Well, you're not alone. New research from America that will likely be true for viewers elsewhere in the world as well, has found that a large and growing number of consumers are not just getting more confused about what TV to watch where, but are now also saying they want one source where they want to get their television from.

At the same time, consumers are not keen on getting just one pay-TV service bundle, and less than half of people with a pay-TV subscription say that they feel that their needs as "very well met".

The new research conducted by Hub Entertainment Research, shows the new and growing cognitive dissonance of TV viewers, who have more TV choices than ever before yet feeling less happy and satisfied with what they're getting, while desiring even more, although they want it curated for them from a single source.

While the number of TV choices in America and elsewhere in the world are growing, South Africa and Africa has also seen a flurry of available TV expansion.

Beyond the offerings of e.tv, community TV channels, the SABC as the South African public broadcaster and MultiChoice's DStv, there's also Deukom as well as StarSat from China's StarTimes Media SA as rival pay-TV players.

Then add the growing slew of subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) services like Naspers' Showmax, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video who are all working hard at making inroads at viewer growth although they're all still at a very small subscriber base in Africa and South Africa.

Where TV viewers had to fork out for MultiChoice DStv as a one-stop shop for access to premium content from the likes of M-Net and SuperSport, all of the best content is no longer just available here.

In addition to a higher-tiered DStv subscription for access to premium programming, South Africans who really want to see all of the best television, now need an Amazon, Netflix South Africa and Showmax subscription as well in order to catch and keep up with the avalanche of all the buzz-worthy, award-winning and must-watch shows from TV's Golden Era.

According to Hub Entertainment Research's "Best Bundle: Consumer Preferences in a Peak TV World", the ever-expanding number of services is confusing consumers.

Just 22% say more TV offerings mean that it's easier to chose what's best for them - down from 11% in 2017.

More than two-thirds of people (69%) say they're keen to access TV content from a single source - yet they don't want a single pay-TV bundle.

A growing number of people (43%) want services that allow them to choose the TV channels they want to pay for - even if this means that the price per individual TV channel is higher and more expensive with a bigger overall cost than a TV bundle where the overall cost is lower but includes TV channels they don't want or care to watch.

"The novelty of having so many options for TV content is wearing off," says Peter Fondulas at Hub Entertainment Research and one of the authors of the study.

"Now consumers want simplicity and efficiency. Bundles that aggregate content from multiple sources are highly desirable – but only if those bundles include little or no content they know they won't watch."

Jon Giegengack, the study's co-author says "it is not the price of traditional TV bundles that turns consumers off so much as how much of what they pay goes to content they don't even use. Viewers would rather have a bundle comprised of just the content they care about – even if it means they have to pay more for each network".

TV NEWS ROUND-UP. Today's interesting TV stories to read from TVwithThinus - 10 April 2018.

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

■ The SABC's disappointing coverage of the life of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela after her death last week.
Why the lack of historical footage on the South African public broadcaster?

■ Naspers' SVOD service Showmax run by MultiChoice, says that in Africa expensive data is slowing down the growth if internet television. 

■ North Americans are the world's biggest TV watching addicts, spending 4 hours per days watching television.

The rest of the world spends nearly 3 hours per day watching TV. Meanwhile millennials and young adults are spending more time on their cellphones and watching TV that way.

■ HBO's Westworld creators are so scared of spoilers leaking about the upcoming 2nd season that will be on M-Net (DStv 101) that they've decided to do spoilers themselves.

■ CBS television executives are freaking out over a looming Charlie Rose expose in The Washington Post.

■ In a new episode "No Good Read Goes Unpunished" The Simpsons addressed the stereotype criticism over the Indian Apu character - and are now facing new complaints. And why The Simpsons' tasteless response to the Apu controversy is so heartbreaking. 

■ Colton Haynes is returning to Arrow seen on M-Net (DStv 101) as a series regular for the 7th season.

■ Star Trek: Discovery available on Netflix South Africa has added Anson Mount who will play Captain Christopher Pike in the second season.

■ FOX News (StarSat 261 / Cell C black 502) accidentally shows viewers that FOX News is the least trusted American TV news channel.

■ How Netflix and Amazon are driving a global reality TV renaissance although the online demand for reality series is still relatively small compared to scripted series.

■ The first photo of the older, reunited Murphy Brown cast.

BREAKING BAD. So, a TV executive came up to me and confronted me at a glamarama event - in front of his daughter. Here is what I did next.

If you're in the mood for a personal, quirky TV tale from a reporter covering the world of television, let me share one from the order side of the red carpet rope - although I won't be sharing names because I (ironically) respect all of the people involved.

Why am I telling this story? 

To help to give some insight into what I will and won't do as a journalist, what I think a journalist should and shouldn't do, and what I think professional TV executives should and shouldn't do.

Two Saturdays ago I attended an extremely well-produced TV awards show.

Afterwards as everyone filed out and enjoyed drinks in the swanky lobby I was talking to a broadcast television CEO about how truly great I thought the award show production values were.

That is when - just over an hour or so before midnight - another TV executive happened to walk past me with his younger daughter. He recognised me first, and came to us and said hello.

Although I was in the middle of a conversation, I said hello and shook hands, he said hello, and he introduced me to his younger daughter.

Here I have to say that I honestly and sincerely do not think the person has any animosity towards me or harbours any grudges, but he made things extremely awkward by suddenly in a sense "confronting" me - in front of the CEO - by saying, but essentially "telling" his daughter, that "he" (meaning me) "always wrote bad about us".

Now, if you stay silent in life when someone says something that you don't agree with, you are implicitly, complicit. What you are saying by saying nothing, is that you agree.

Let me also say that I'm not and wasn't the least bit offended, that I don't believe I'm predisposed to "always write bad" about anything, and that as a journalist I like to hear from people and their views irrespective of whether its "good" or "bad". I can handle it.

Also, if I "wrote bad" about anybody or anything, whatever that means, believe me - they most likely fairly deserve it - and I know that I probably also take the time to also report and note the reason(s) why it's the case so people and places can do better (if they want to).

What made the situation difficult was that the person initiated a conversation, and tried to bring my professional reputation as a reporter, into the mix - in front of his daughter.

How do you "fight" back or defend yourself when it will involve - to whatever degree - diminishing the reputation or stature of the other person in front of their child?

I didn't need to make a decision. 

I knew that I was not going to engage in any kind of this type of conversation with the dad in front of his child and possibly spoil what is supposed to be a very nice "lets go to this event/live experience together to add a family memory".

Whether in my personal or professional life, I'm not ever going to shame a parent and point out their errors or ask him to expand further on his view, or recollection of past experiences (that is different than mine) in front of a daughter.

Very firmly I said "No, I don't always write bad about you. What I will say is that I believe that whatever I report and write is fair". 

The dad and daughter wandered off and I think I felt most badly for the CEO who was extremely graceful and who really also interacts with all kinds of people across the emotional intelligence scale.

The dad TV exec wasn't angry or aggressive but chose such an (inappropriate) moment to share his feeling about something, which came across as a type of an inappropriate throw-away comment for the moment.

Yet it's something that I could see was something he really just wanted to say. 

Now, from my side, as I've said, I'm not going ever going to get into any argument with anyone in front of their kids. Oprah taught us that if you shame the parent, you shame the child.

Notes to TV world people: If a publication, journalist, reporter or the media wronged you or you feel you've been unjustly framed, portrayed or reported on - reach out and make contact and talk to the reporter - when it happens.

Irrespective of what you might think, they/we/I like hearing from you - about the "breaking bad" and the "breaking good".

Don't wait 8 years while something is eating at your soul and then run up to a person when you co-incidentally happen to pass them somewhere in public. It's unprofessional.

If you feel really strongly about something, don't wait to talk shop at a random occasion where the social etiquette is to do small-talk.

It felt like the family members you sometimes get at weddings and funerals who you haven't seen in years and haven't made any effort to stay in contact, who suddenly use the wedding reception or family gathering as the inappropriate place to discuss or bring up awkward memories, recollections or issues they now want to sort out.

(Did you take grandma's gold watch? She promised it to me. I'm wondering where that watch is. I know you took it, and you never loved her like I did. You must give it to me.")

You really couldn't put in some effort if you feel so strongly about something that you couldn't reach out sooner?

What would I have done or said if the dad wasn't standing with his daughter? I would have said "don't you want to call or email me on Monday so we can set up a meeting time to discuss your concerns?"

When professional people are serious about something, that is what they do. 

Be professional in public as a professional person. 

And complain. Complain a lot. Complain directly to the right people who can do something about it.

And do it in the right place, and at the right time (not an hour before midnight), instead of throwing something out the window in front of your kid in a drive-by.

Ri Chun Hee - the dear North Korea news reader who will outlive us all.

It's not cockroaches, Cher or Riaan Cruywagen who will outlive us all. It's Ri Chun Hee.

Her face is known to millions of people around the world although she lives in one of the most notoriously secluded countries in the world.

Yet when she once again popped up on Sunday on television, everyone knew some big announcement was forthcoming.

On Sunday, framed in front of a TV screen backdrop of Mount Paektu, the dormant volcano on the Chinese border that symbolises North Korean nationhood, Ri Chun Hee shuddered with excitement - not because she caught another one in Pokemon Go - but because she could announce another massive hydrogen bomb explosion test as "the perfect success".

Ri Chun Hee (74) has been the news anchor on North Korea's state broadcaster for longer than even South Africa's Riaan Cruywagen, and on Sunday, as in the preceding 4 decades, Ri Chun Hee appeared on North Korea's Korean Central Television (KCTV) to proclaim that the dear leader's army tested a hydrogen bomb.

The excitable Ri is always very brave as she keeps telling North Korea and the world the news and pushes through her words although she's visibly fighting back and tries not to become overwhelmed with emotion.

She's the global face of North Korea's propaganda machine, much like Caesar Flickerman in The Hunger Games book and film series and in 2016 the BBC called Ri Chun Hee "probably the most famous newsreader in the world".

Now a grandmother, Ri Chun Hee, who was born poor in 1943, first appeared on North Korea's TV service way back in 1971 and became the main news anchor in 1974.

Whenever there's deaths like those of dear leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, intercontinental ballistic missiles being launched, or nuclear bombs being tested, it is Ri who comes on air to break down and cry, excitedly jump up and down in her chair like Pokemon, or to bombastically scold and attack the evil America and the rest of the free world.

The lovely Ri sooths and calms - even when she announces that North Korea has nuclear bombs that can kill millions - showing that nothing about North Korea's regime will apparently ever change.

Even in her never-changing appearance, like again on Sunday when the world stopped and stared, Ri seems somehow encased in amber: almost always on TV in a pink traditional Korean hanbok behind the anchor desk, with her raven black hair perfectly done.

While even Wikipedia calls Ri Chun Hee who lives in the capital of Pyongyang "retired", she is definitely not.

According to North Korea, their exulted news reader is held in very high regard for her "resonant voice, impressive mood and outstanding eloquence" - things that Cher and Riaan Cruywagen who won't survive a nuclear detonation like Ri would - can never dream to have.

Over decades Ri Chun Hee has perfected the art of TV news reading melodrama.

The professional Ri is beloved for the way in which she can be seen battling to hold back tears, chastising the enemies of North Korea and appearing ever-present for the news from the totalitarian dictatorship known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Katharine H.S. Moon, a professor at Wellesley College, told Britain's Channel 4 that Ri Chun Hee "in many ways serves as the public mother image, or feminine image for the state, because North Korean never has allowed any of the wives of the North Korean leaders to be in public life. It's so rare."

"She's highly-trusted by the state. She is literally the voice of the state to the public."

"People have become so accustomed to her face - she is the one who is trusted by the people because she is the one they meet every night on the television."

Eskom blackouts and emergency load shedding hit South Africa's TV industry, damages local TV biz and impacts ratings.

Eskom's disastrous blackouts and emergency load shedding is directly damaging South Africa's local television industry.

Eskom's blackouts and rolling nationwide load shedding is not just impacting TV production and broadcasters but also viewership: during blackouts when TV sets go dark, it literally wipes millions of South African TV households off the grid reducing the overall potential TV audience.

That has a debilitating effect on viewership figures and ratings, decreasing the overall available audience.

While South Africa's beleaguered electricity supplier is in crisis mode - although the parastatal is lying and denying a crisis - it's industries like South Africa's TV sector bearing the brunt of the blackout disaster that is being directly, and negatively, impacted by Eskom's chronic electricity shortage.

Eskom's ongoing failure to provide enough electricity - which has seen businesses and ordinary consumer households plunged into darkness - is the result of improper maintenance planning, breakdowns, insufficient maintenance and repair, billions spent and wasted on unfinished power plants years behind schedule, wet coal, a lack of coal, a lack of cash to pay for diesel and waiting too late to order it, as well as a foolish over-reliance on promises and capacity from notoriously unreliable electricity import sources like Cahora Bassa.

Whenever there's blackouts, Eskom is directly responsible for dramatically reducing the size of the available TV audience and that negatively impacts all broadcasters - from community TV stations like SowetoTV to the public broadcaster SABC and e.tv, as well as pay-TV providers like M-Net, MultiChoice's DStv and On Digital Media (ODM) and StarTimes SA's StarSat.

Eskom has now quietly decided to cut the electricity of ordinary consumers - meaning TV households are left without electricity first, instead of large industrial users as before.

Irrespective of where or when Eskom's simultaneous blackouts occur, it's a given that there's tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of TV households where people were watching television and where TV sets were on - eyeballs no longer watching. All of these quickly adds up.

Broadcasters and their sales divisions who upfront sell TV commercials and ad packages against certain guaranteed base viewership figures, end up having to do "make good"  advert timeslots as they're forced to shell out and lose more inventory to make up for the shortfall in promised viewers.

This happens when ad buyers have to get more additional TV commercials and exposure when previously booked and paid ads were seen by less viewers than what was agreed upon due to something like Eskom's load shedding 3B schedule which effectively "deletes" TV households from the rating systems' tallies.

Eskom's power implosion comes at a time during November and December that is premium ad buying season when advertisers and agencies want to use the highly influential medium of television to get their products, services and brands seen - traditionally a lucrative period of the year for broadcasters fattening the cows before the lean months at the beginning of a next year.

Eskom's blackouts prevent DStv subscribers' PVRs from recording Catch Up content - obviously - but also software and system updates. Spare a thought for the hard drives and countless decoders which unexpectedly shut down and must reboot when the power comes back on; the TV sets and sound systems at risk of power surges and DVD players suddenly dead with disks inside.

The two recent Eskom power cuts over weekends cuts into the ratings of SABC1's just restarted Generations which is already facing a ratings challenge and just saw its omnibus return to the schedule - on Saturdays.

Black TV screens will definitely eat into the audience ratings points that the Generations weekend repeat provided to SABC1  -the same for Scandal! on e.tv and Muvhango and 7de Laan on SABC2, and Isidingo and The Bold and the Beautiful on SABC3. They will all rate with lower than usual AR's.

That is just the debilitating impact of Eskom's electricity deficiency on TV viewers and viewership figures.

TV productions and broadcasters, especially those with live show or live audience elements are also impacted.

November and December so far saw the month with the largest number of live TV show finales ever in South African television history as well as the most upfront presentations in one month.

From productions ranging from SA's Got Talent, Idols, The X Factor SA the Channel O Music Video Awards, and Big Brother Africa who all make use of back-up power generation, to broadcasters and TV channels ranging from the SABC, e.tv, Discovery, the BBC and others, worry as audience members struggle to make it to recording venues through traffic gridlock due to dead traffic lights, and as guests arrive late for upfront screenings where advertisers and media are shown 2015 programming which is often the catalyst for ad sales and sponsorships.

Location shoots for shows and commercials - although at its lowest number during December - are impacted, upping production budgets from the smallest to the largest TV producers when blackouts force reshoots and rescheduling.

Several local TV magazine shows already had to adjust shooting schedules and planned inserts where places and backdrops they planned to film at or record interviews, had no electricity since November.

It also negatively impacts turn-around times for delivery. When there's no electricity there's no video editing, no sound editing, and no post production happening until the lights come back on - and a lot of it happens over weekends. Add lost time and overtime pay to production companies' worries.

Movie critics are used to the dark but load shedding has become a problem for film distributors now warning publications and movie critics with an additional note that scheduled film previews won't take place if cinemas in shopping malls suddenly experience blackouts.

Similar to South Africa's recent labirintine and suddenly much more restrictive visa regulations for foreigners - which has already delayed and negatively impacted foreign film productions, TV shows like Homeland and Big Brother Africa and international TV commercials shot here - irregular, unstable and a constantly interrupted electricity supply is giving productions second thoughts on whether they should consider locations other than South Africa.