TV NEWS ROUND-UP. Today's interesting TV stories to read - 3 September 2020.

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

■ Must-see cheap production values: Doctor in an Indian medical drama series uses Scotch Brite scrubs as "defibrilators".

■ South Africa's hyped but disappointing Blood and Water on Netflix doesn't really reflect South African life.
Compared to the much better done better Grassroots on Mzansi Magic (DStv 161) that is much more nuanced.

■ Islamaphobic? Joy Reid on MSNBC (StarSat 263) has no apology over her "The way Muslims act" comment that sparked outrage, says her comments were misconstrued.

■ China's propaganda channel CGTN (DStv 409 / StarSat 266) has scrubbed its website and removed anything to do with its anchor Cheng Lei detained in China, and deleted videos and references to her on its social media.

■ In America advertisers now want to cancel their campaign out of fear that the upcoming 2020 TV season will be disastrous for ratings given the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic.

■ The most toxic behind-the-scenes on-set stories of Netflix's cancelled The Patriot Act.

■ A new low for Indian television news.
- And in Australia: When television news is bad news.

■ Can satellite pay-TV survive in the video streaming centric world?

■ The Grand Tour on Amazon Prime Video will travel the world again after Covid.

■ The 10 most expensive to produce Netflix Original series and how much they cost.

■ Tanzania's shocking crackdown on media continues as Clouds TV becomes the latest TV channel to get banned.

■ How watching TV may relate to depression.

■ With new Wan Luo TV channel it's the first time people in northern Uganda will have a national TV broadcast inthe Luo dialect.

■ Scandal: Kerry Washington would have abandoned the Scandal series if Fitz was ...

■ An Indian journalist's shocking letter about working for Republic TV.

The Grand Tour on Amazon Prime Video changes its format for the third season to align with global viewers' preferences, doing away with British guests and more changes to come.

The Grand Tour on Amazon Prime Video has changed its format for the 13-episode third season, with the episodes that will roll out weekly from Friday 18 January that will align more with global viewers' preferences.

The seasons beyond that will see even more changes for The Grand Tour.

The new third season of The Grand Tour will be the last to have a studio audience and a tent, and the guests are also gone.

Amazon has renewed The Grand Tour in December 2018 beyond the new third season but for a series of travelogue specials.

The Grand Tour from the 4th season will be different in style from the first three, with the presenters who will "ditch the tent and take on big adventure road trips that fans around the world love".

The Grand Tour with Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May back for a third season, is also doing away with guests, who in the previous two seasons were mostly British personalities.

At Amazon Prime Video's media launch for The Grand Tour on Tuesday in London, Jeremy Clarkson reportedly said that international viewers don't know and don't care who the British guests appearing on the show are.

"When we began on the other show [Top Gear on the BBC], many years ago, it was a British show that was only really shown in the United Kingdom," said Jeremy Clarkson.

"And then it became international, and it still is very, very international. We're much better known in Italy and China than we are here in the UK, weirdly."

"So there is no point in having a guest where you go, 'Ladies and gentlemen, it's Howard from the Halifax advert' because in Uruguay, they haven't got a f- clue who Howard is. There seemed to be no point persevering with the guests. So that segment has gone. No guests in series three," said Jeremy Clarkson.

Richard Hammond said what viewers like "is what we like the most - which is the big adventures, us three messing about in Mongolia or Colombia or China or wherever else."

Jay Marine, vice president of Amazon Prime Video says "The Grand Tour is a worldwide hit and fan favourite. We're delighted the guys are coming back for series four. We're proud to say that Prime Video will continue to be the home for Jeremy, Richard and James".

"They've got some ambitious new ideas that Prime members are going to love. We're excited to bring more Clarkson, Hammond and May to Amazon Prime Video for years to come."

Piracy fears grow as Jeremy Clarkson's new car show The Grand Tour launches but isn't available for watching in South Africa or Africa.

Television piracy fears are growing over Jeremy Clarkson's new Top Gear like car show The Grand Tour that just rolled out its first episode but isn't available in South Africa or anywhere in Africa but already flooding piracy sites.

The fear is that when The Grand Tour - the new car show produced for Amazon with the former Top Gear stars Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May - do eventually become available in South Africa and across Africa, that most ardent fans and viewers who are interested in it, will have already found a way to watch it anyway.

M-Net that didn manage to acquire other Amazon produced shows like Mozart in the Jungle and Transparent told TVwithThinus on Thursday that it hasn't acquired The Grand Tour, meaning the show won't be available on MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV platform.

With no word from subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) services Netflix or ShowMax about The Grand Tour, and Amazon being coy about which further countries it will be launching its Amazon Video Prime VOD service in, it's highly likely that the mostly male viewership courted by the show will watch The Grand Tour long before Amazon Video Prime launches in South Africa - if it does.

Amazon Video Prime is set to launch in a further 200 countries in December and switched on in Australia last night, but it's unclear whether South Africa is part of the list that will get the service. Netflix is currently available in 190 countries.

Part of the first season of The Grand Tour - releasing one episode per week on Amazon Video Prime since yesterday - is an episode filmed earlier this year in Johannesburg, South Africa.

This South African episode that will be become available next week Friday and following the debut episode set in California's desert, will be the second episode of the new series.

While BBC Worldwide's failed reset Top Gear seen earlier this year on BBC Brit (DStv 120) with Chris Evans was panned by critics and viewers alike and saw the host quit as ratings plummeted, The Grand Tour that Amazon spent millions on, looks like an instant hit while critics are back raving about Jezza and car company.

Forbes describes The Grand Tour as "really Top Gear on steroids" while The Telegraph raved that "the production values are as mind-blowing as billed" as describing the show as not "yet five minutes in and already Top Gear had been thoroughly trumped".

"The new series will certainly go some way towards obliterating memories of Top Gear's terrible Chris Evans fronted relaunch," said The Telegraph, noting that "Petrolheads can rejoice. The BBC may wonder how Matt LeBlanc and whoever joins him next year can possibly compete".

The Guardian says "Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond prove they can still make a spectacle – and keep the petrolheads happy".

USA Today notes that The Grand Tour is "ambitious".

With good reviews and a passionate fanbase for The Grand Tour, if Amazon Video Prime does launch in South Africa sometime in December, it might be too late for the Amazon Studios produced show to actually cash in on viewers.

If The Grand Tour does become available to South African viewers it will be after the show's international launch date and episode roll-out schedule, while a growing number of South African and African consumers with broadband access over the past three years have turned to other ways of finding TV downloads if a show isn't broadcast or made available legally in the territory.

Former Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson heading to South Africa in mid-July for first studio audience recording for new car show, The Grand Tour.

The former Top Gear trio of Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May are heading to South Africa in mid-July where they will film the first studio section of their new show, The Grand Tour, for Amazon.

After a lackluster debut of the BBC's new Top Gear that recently visited South Africa to film a challenging race from Durban to the highest bar in Lesotho, Jeremy Clarkson announced that the team which jumped to Amazon after an ugly behind-the-scenes fight, will be heading to South Africa first to film for The Grand Tour.

The Grand Tour will launch as a video-on-demand (VOD) streaming show on Amazon and might well be picked up by another South African broadcaster like M-Net that's already showing Amazon shows like Transparent and Mozart in the Jungle.

The Grand Tour will record in Johannesburg on 17 July and is looking for studio audience members. This will be the first studio segment recorded for the show.

"The pre-recorded studio section of the programme will be filmed in front of a live audience, all housed within a giant tent," The Grand Tour team said on Amazon's British website.

"To celebrate, Amazon is giving fans the opportunity to win one of three pairs of tickets, travel and accommodation to be part of the recording in Johannesburg".

People can enter from now until 8 June through Twitter by using the hashtag #TheGrandTour and must attach a photo or video of the strangest place they've ever put up a tent with the trio of presenters who will choose the final three winners out of a shortlisted top 10.