See Diana, Charles, William and Harry in Netflix's 6th and final season of The Crown.

by Thinus Ferreira

It's almost picture-perfect: Netflix has released publicity images revealing Princes William and Harry - along with their parents Princess Diana and Prince Charles - for the 6th and final season of the British royalty drama series The Crown and its art imitating life.

While Elizabeth Debicki is back as the suffering Princess Diana, there are two actors each for Prince William and Prince Harry - depicting younger and older versions of the heir and the spare. 

Rufus Kampa is the younger Prince William in Part I of The Crown's sixth season while Ed McVey is the older Prince William in Part II. Fflyn Edwards is the younger Prince Harry in Part I of the 6th season, with Luther Ford in the role in Part II. 

Meg Bellamy is Kate Middleton in Part II. Part I will be released on Netflix on 16 November, followed by the last few episodes in Part II on 14 December.

Part I has four episodes, with Part II having six episodes for a total of 10 episodes in the final season.

In the 6th season of The Crown, subscribers will see the development of the romantic relationship between Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed which culminates in their untimely deaths in a horrific car accident in a Paris tunnel which shocked the world and almost meant the end of the British royal family.

According to Netflix, the 6th season of The Crown also sees "Prince William trying to integrate back into life at Eton in the wake of his mother's death as the monarchy has to ride the wave of public opinion. As she reaches her Golden Jubilee, the Queen reflects on the future of the monarchy with the marriage of Charles and Camilla and the beginnings of a new Royal fairytale in William and Kate".

Imelda Staunton portrays Queen Elizabeth II with Jonathan Pryce in the role of Prince Phillip and Dominic West as Prince Charles. 

The rest of the season's cast includes Lesley Manville as Princess Margaret, Olivia Williams as Camilla Parker Bowles, and Khalid Abdalla as Dodi Fayed.

TV NEWS ROUND-UP. Today's interesting TV stories to read - 4 November 2020.

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

■ The End of an Era for America's legacy media, no matter who wins the 2020 American presidential election.

The news business after Donald Trump and the brave new world of content moderation that’s outside the take-down/leave-up false binary.

■ "I don't want to wait": Dawson's Creek is now on Netflix but without its iconic themesong - here's why.

■ What happens to America's MSNBC (StarSat 263) and CNN (DStv 401) channels if they lose their bete noire Donald Trump?

- America's TV networks left in limbo as the United States struggles to decide who won the 2020 presidential election.

- "Almost like a story line on Scandal we've spent the past 4 years living in a TV reality show. It's time to wake up"

■ SCREAM! What in the weird name of Halloween editorial mismanagement did eNCA (DStv 403) think to yet again inflict brand damage and denting its credibility with bizarre on-air TV theatre?

- Thulasizwe Simelane's bizarre Halloween mask stabbing " is a clearly ill-thought-out" hot mess.

■ MultiChoice and Netflix SA won't be reacting kindly to the daft plan of the SABC to have them tack on SABC TV Licence fees to customers' subscription fees on behalf of the public broadcaster.

- Pay your SABC TV Licence? The SABC no longer curates content that people like. (subscription required)

- Netflix South Africa and the SABC and the broadcaster's idea to get Netflix to pay SABC TV Licence fees: Have a listen.

- Canada will not force Netflix and Amazon to collect local taxes but they do have help fund locally-produced TV content.

■ Trade unions tell the SABC to rather let hundreds of staffers at the bloated South African public broadcaster go on early retirement instead of firing them in its retrenchment process.

■ Princess Diana's bulimia depiction is so graphic in the upcoming 4th season of The Crown that Netflix will add a viewer warning before the episode.

■ Why does Netflix hate Chicago?

■ The Playgirl magazine is back - but it looks very different. As for the naked man centrefold, have a look ...

■ Netflix to debut its first Egyptian original drama series, Paranormal.

■ Why the Canal+ stake in MultiChoice is a win-win. (subscription required)

■ Amazon Prime Video reports 80% growth in international video streaming.

■ Netflix is shaking up its executive ranks. Here's what the video streaming service has been doing.

America's 2020 Fall TV season is here, Covid-19 and all.

Here's how TV production is happening in America during a TV season like no other.

■ Buy your poppies: The Witcher on Netflix coming out with a new toy line.

■ "Baby Shark" swims to become the most-watched video on YouTube ever.

- Google's YouTube passes the mark of 3 million paid subscribers.

■ Does product integration on TV work or not?

■ What is the future of TV?

A customer experience futurist gives her take. Personalised instead of packages. Video streaming. Interactive content. Original content.

■ Hong Kong TV journalist charged over report about police misconduct - and could be thrown in jail.

TV NEWS ROUND-UP. Today's interesting TV stories to read - 30 October 2020.

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

■ Andisa Ndlovu leaves eNCA (DStv 403)
... while Zoe Brown pops back up at SABC3's Expresso.

■ Outsurance edits SABC3 Expresso presenter Katlego Maboe out of its TV commercials after his cheating.

- Katlego Maboe's "wife abuse storm" story also news across Southern Africa.

■ Season 2 of Star Wars: The Mandalorian starts on Disney+ that is NOT available on South Africa or Africa - a favourite character makes a cameo!

- Star Wars: The Mandalorian: Disney's biggest blockbuster of 2020 returns with a new mission.

- Who is Cobb Vanth?

- A Star Wars lore cheat sheet for season 2.

- Star Wars: The Mandalorian season 2 makes Disney+ the lead streamer.

- But perhaps again the most pirated TV show of 2020  as it was in 2019?

Disney refused to preview or make screeners of the second season available to TV critics.

■ Star Wars: The Mandalorian reviews: 

- "A smorgasbord of action and Easter eggs"

- "A fun return"

- "Creators have started to think bigger"

- The best episode yet? Season 2 premiere was amazing"

- Season 2 kicks off in the best way"

■ CNN International (DStv 401) contributor lied on CNN.

■ Fox News (StarSat 261) Tucker Carlson claims; proof lost in the mail.

■ What happens to Fox News (StarSat 261) if Donald Trump loses the 2020 American election? Rupert Murdoch is prepared.

■ Angry South African artists in potential hostage situation demand answers from the country's incompetent Gauteng Arts and Culture department over Covid-19 relief funds.

■ As expected, Netflix hikes prices in America.

■ Amazon Prime Video: The consumer doesn't own the series and films they buy to watch.

■ How will Disney's experiment making its big-screen Mulan available on its Disney+ streamer affect the VOD business?

■ South Africans are tired of "doing the right thing" when it comes to paying their SABC TV Licence fees and won't stand for being taxed more to fund the SABC simply by watching MultiChoice's DStv or Netflix SA.

- There are a lot of challenges around the SABC and department of communications' idea to have private companies like MultiChoice and Netflix collect and pay SABC TV Licence fees on behalf of their customers.

■ The Masked Singer is getting a spinoff: The Masked Dancer.

■ NBCUniversal is apparently done with creating content and shows for a specific pay-TV channel.

What will happen to American-produced linear pay-TV channels like E!, Universal TV, Studio Universal and others carried on platforms like DStv in Africa?

■ See and hear Gillian Anderson and her stunning transformation into Margaret Thatcher in the trailer for the 4th season of The Crown on Netflix.

■ Sky gives carpentry show The Chop on Sky History channel the chop after Nazi scandal.

TV NEWS ROUND-UP. Today's interesting TV stories to read - 12 October 2020.

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

■ "Too complex to break up" is the new excuse-slogan for "too big to fail".

The so-called "blue wave" is coming if America's Democratic Party wins the upcoming American election with the country's new wave of politicians who plan to break up the market dominance of Apple, Facebook, Google and Amazon.

■ How Fox News (StarSat 261) creates its news narratives to play out like daily, serialised dramas.

Tells stories in a surprisingly similar way to a show like Lost or Stranger Things on Netflix; draws viewers deeper into a created reality that it spins for the watcher.

■ More penises are appearing on TV and in film and full frontal male nudity increases - but why are nearly all of them prosthetic?

In the obsession with size, big penis mystique must preserve the power of the phallus through prosthetic.

■ How The Crown on Netflix recreated Princess Diana's iconic wedding dress.

■ Massive ongoing court battle between the disgraced and famously matricless former SABC COO Hlaudi Motsoeneng and the South Africa's Special Investigating Unit (SIU).

■ The second season of The Boys ends with a shocking masturbation scene that was originally cut from the first season.

■ MultiChoice Studios now wants to sell its South African and African content to broadcasters across the Middle East.

■ Channing Dungey dumps Netflix after less than 2 years in shocking departure, is she heading to Warner Bros TV?

■ Because of NBCUniversal downsizing and cost-cutting rivals E! and Access Hollywood are now forced to share studio space.

Awkwardness as both E! and Access Hollywood look down on each other. The E! people think they're the "cool hip crowd" and Access is outdated and old, while Access thinks they're on broadcast television and E! is small and irrelevant. 

■ Viewership for embattled Ellen DeGeneres Show keeps falling after scandal. 

■ Nominations have opened for a vacancy on the SABC board and the application process closes on 15 October 2020.

■ TV's wave of "un-renewals": Scripted shows getting cancelled because of Covid after they become too expensive and difficult to produce because of the global pandemic.

■ CBS updates its iconic eye logo as CBS Television Studios rebrands to CBS Studios to identify CBS programming in end-title card.

■ YouTube more representative of Britain than television.

TV NEWS ROUND-UP. Today's interesting TV stories to read - 23 July 2020.

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

■ Disney, Sky and Netflix are the best of Frenemies.
Sky's pay-TV boss reveals - just like the case is with MultiChoice's DStv - an initial nervousness over allowing Netflix onto its Sky Q pay-TV service.

■ Ellen DeGeneres - Th evil stepmother of American daytime TV.

■ Woman tries to steal a 165 cm flatscreen TV set.

■ Love on the spectrum - a dating show that celebrates autism.

■ How I found my female legal mentors on TV.

■ As TV evolves, so too does the scale and scope of innovation.

■ Netflix's Indian Matchmaking misses the full story on arranged marriages.
 - Triggers debate.   - Doctor Who's Mandip Gipp slams the show over its portrayal of colourism.
-Viewers slam show as a "cesspool of casteims, colourism, sexism and classisim".

■ The 5th season of The Crown will only start in 2022.

How to shoot a TV sex scene during Covid-19 - cue the mannequins.

■ How Hollywood accidentally built Netflix.


■ Let the Game of Thrones Video Streaming Wars begin.
With the launch of Peacock in the United States, there is now Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, Disney+, HBO Max, Quibi, Hulu and a few other video streaming services. Now we'll see - literally - who survives.
- Psst: Long-term success will be determined by the user experience (UE) - the way in which and experience viewers have in discovering and controlling the content.


■ How the on-screen depiction of romance is changing in Korea's "K-dramas" and disappointing viewers.
It has to do with ... marriage.

■ When did reality TV get so sexual?

■ How far is too far? The most-complained and disgusting TV commercials of the past decade in the United Kingdom and Australia.

■ The traditional linear TV business tries to adapt ...
...  left managing a melting ice-cube while they adapt operations for a video streaming future.

■ StarTimes Nigeria to add DreamWorks animation TV channel in September.

■ CAN (Christian Association of Nigeria) declares that M-Net's 5th season of Big Brother Naija on MultiChoice's DStv is evil.

■ Were the flashback scenes in the American drama series This Is Us seen on M-Net (DStv 101) filmed years in advance?

■ MultiChoice launches Enhanced Decoder Notification (EDN) for DStv decoders across Africa.
The new functionality adds icons that display different types of notifications on the Live TV screen

Emma Corrin, soon to also play the former Miss South Africa Jillian Jessup, cast as Princess Diana in the 4th season of Netflix's The Crown.

The actress Emma Corrin will portray Diana Spencer that eventually becomes the beloved Princess Diana in the fourth season of the British drama series The Crown on Netflix.

Emma Corrin had a guest role in the British drama series Grantchester seen on ITV Choice (DStv 123).

She will soon make her film debut as Miss South Africa, Jillian Jessup, in the film Misbehaviour, a historical drama that retells the story of a group of women from the Women's Liberation Movement who tried to disrupt the Miss World beauty pageant in 1970 and which saw the crowning of the first black competitor.

The Crown, created by Peter Morgan, continues to tell a fictional, dramatised version, based on real-life, of the life of Queen Elizabeth II, with every season covering a couple of years during the previous century.

The third season of The Crown will become available on Netflix later this year, in which Olivia Colman replaces Claire Foy who played the Queen in the first two seasons, and with Tobias Menzies taking over the role of Prince Phillip from Matt Smith.

Other cast members of the third season will include Helena Bonham Carter (Princess Margaret), Jason Watkins, Josh O'Connor, Emerald Fennell, Marion Bailey and Gillian Anderson (Margaret Thatcher).

"Beyond excited and honoured to be joining The Crown for its fourth season," says Emma Corrin in a statement, with Netflix that confirmed the casting in a tweet. "I have been glued to the show since the first episode and to think I'm now joining this incredibly talented acting family is just surreal."

"Princess Diana was an icon, and her effect on the world remains profound and inspiring. To be given the chance to explore her through Peter Morgan's writing is the most exceptional opportunity, and I will strive to do her justice!"

Peter Morgan says "Emma is a brilliant talent who immediately captivated us when she came in for the part of Diana Spencer".

"As well as having the innocence and beauty of a young Diana, she also has, in abundance, the range and complexity to portray an extraordinary woman who went from anonymous teenager to becoming the most iconic woman of her generation."

TV NEWS ROUND-UP. Today's interesting TV stories to read from TVwithThinus - 22 January 2019.

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

■ Gillian Anderson to play British prime minister Margaret Thatcher in the next season of The Crown on Netflix.

■ For marketers and advertisers: How to break your addiction to linear TV.

■ Teen Mom. Merlin. Everyone has a secret shame - shamelessly binge-watching terrible TV shows.

■ Thing runs out of house with flat-screen TV. Thing throws flat-screen into fire pit in anger oover sports broadcast.

■ 6 TV sex scenes that were a disaster off-camera.

■ Golden Globes Fiji water girl photobomber, Kelleth Cuthbert, translates her viral fame into a TV role.
She will appear on the CBS soap The Bold and the Beautiful.

■ What does Friends, Sex and the City, Keeping Up with the Kardashians, The Office and SpongeBob Squarepants have in common?
They're the most popular TV shows for people to learn English.

■ A letter from Africa: What it's like to report a terror attack in Africa as a TV news anchor.
Kenya's Waihiga Mwaura, a TV news anchor for Citizen TV, looks back at last week's horrific terror attack in Nairobi, Kenya.

■ Why Netflix's marketing costs exploded.
Winning a new customer in the United States now costs Netflix more than four times what it cost a few years ago in terms of marketing spend.

■ With interactive TV, every viewer is a showrunner now.

■ The most dramatic thing in Muvhango on SABC2 that can apparently be teased as an episodic highlight is the gun violence. 

■ Guess how many subscribers plan to cancel after Netflix's latest price hike.

■ Inside the virgin Colton Underwood's dramatic journey long before The Bachelor.

■ Hilarious: British TV viewers are less likely to choose to waste the tea in Netflix's choose-your-own-adventure, Black Mirror: Bandersnatch.
Netflix reveals that British viewers are statistically less likely to make the choice that Stefan throws tea over his computer, versus smashing it to pieces, compared to the rest of the world.

■ Clueless Sky News (DStv 402) reporter mistakes a fan for a soccer club manager on TV.

■ Qatar's beIN pay-TV operator published a dossier of evidence about how Saudi Arabia is stealing its sports content.

■ Viacom Africa doesn't bother sending a screener or link to press for its first local show on MTV (DStv 130) in order to preview or see its @Lasizwe: Fake It till you Make It reality show.

■ The troubling team behind CNN Brasil raising questions over the forthcoming TV news channel's credibility.

■ Zambia's postal service, Zampost, owes a lot of money to MultiChoice Zambia.

The new live-action Star Wars TV drama series will be more expensive than Game of Thrones.

The upcoming new live-action Star Wars TV drama series will reportedly be more expensive than Game of Thrones - itself one of the most expensive TV productions ever in television's new so-called Gilded Age filled with more ultra-premium, high-cost series than what anyone can ever hope to all watch.

In television's new arms race to make and roll out expensive and prestige-filled series as existing broadcasters try to retain their relevance and ratings, while streaming video services likewise ramp up and splash the cash on lavish shows, Disney is the latest to make it rain mega-bucks to create a must-watch drama.

Hidden inside a lengthy new business article in The New York Times about The Walt Disney Company's as yet unnamed and to be launched Disney subscription video-on-demand service (SVOD), is an eye-watering statistic: that Disney plans to spend $10 million (R134.2 million) per episode - per episode! - on making the new Star Wars drama series.

The New York Times article also reveals that the as yet unnamed Star Wars series will have a first season of 10 episodes. It means that the production budget for the series will be over R100 million.

HBO, producer of the fantasy drama series, Game of Thrones, seen in South Africa and across the rest of Africa on M-Net (DStv 101), in September 2017 revealed that the 7th season of Game of Thrones cost $10 million per episode but that the upcoming final 8th season would cost $15 million per episode, making the last season of Game of Thrones TV's most expensive per-episode show yet.

However, because earlier seasons cost less and had more episodes and because Game of Thrones' last season will only have 6 episodes - and with Star Wars start off with $10 million and also foreseeably running into multiple season in the future - it's clear that Star Wars will actually surpass Game of Thrones as television's most expensive show. For now.

Other shows are however nipping at the heels when it comes to TV-making sticker shock.

Netflix's royalty-laden The Crown available on Netflix South Africa also cost $10 million per episode (Buckingham Palace is a big place with multiple drafty rooms to meticulously recreate inside a soundstage).

And there are other "scary things": The first season of the supernatural drama series Stranger Things also available on Netflix South Africa cost $6 million per episode, and increased to $8 million for the second season.

Star Trek: Discovery made by CBS Television Studios and available outside America on Netflix like Netflix South Africa, had a price tag of $8.5 million for its first season and a total production budget of more than $120 million.

Now take a deep breath because the upcoming Star Wars series with its "most expensive" label that hasn't even landed yet, will be eclipsed by another "most most expensive" show that will make it debut sometime in late-2019.

This one is even further off into production development. Amazon Studios' Lord of the Rings TV series that will unspool on its Amazon Prime Video streaming service, and rumoured to start around 2021, will come in at a cost of $1 billion for at least 5 seasons.

Netflix paid the Queen as the lead in The Crown less than the King because he was Doctor Who on the BBC.

The executive producers of the drama series The Crown on Netflix about the life of Queen Elizabeth II admitted that Claire Foy (33) as the lead character was paid less than Matt Smith who portrayed Prince Philip because he was more well known for his role as Doctor Who on the BBC.

Executive producers Suzanne Mackie and Andy Harries at the INTV TV industry conference in Jerusalem, Israel, told conference goers that "going forward, no-one gets paid more than the Queen".

It doesn't help the Emmy nominated Claire Foy since she got dumped after the second season and is being replaced with Olivia Colman from the third season of The Crown. It's not known yet who will be replacing Matt Smith.

Suzanne Mackie said the 35-year old Matt Smith got paid more than Claire Foy because of his Doctor Who fame.