Sony Channel blames fast turnaround times with filming for GoggleBox South Africa, for showing DStv viewers the families watching a show that never aired.

The Sony Channel says a fast turnaround time is to blame after filming the latest GoggleBox South Africa episode that showed families watching RuPaul's Drag Race on M-Net's VUZU channel - although the show and the episode never actually aired on DStv.

GoggleBox South Africa as the first local South African commission for Sony Pictures Television's Sony Channel (DStv 127) purports to show DStv subscribers how other South African viewers are reacting to what is being shown on television in the country.

The Sony Channel admits that the families are not actually filmed watching all of the shows live at the time it's broadcast on MultiChoice's various DStv channels.

The Sony Channel says the GoggleBox South Africa producers worked from the print schedules for April supplied by M-Net for its VUZU channel - a schedule that then changed.

In the 8th episode of GoggleBox South Africa that was broadcast on Thursday night, the Sony Channel showed how families watched the 8th season premiere episode of RuPaul's Drag Race.

The episode was however never screened on VUZU since M-Net ran into content licencing issues and pulled the show from its line-up. The 8th season of RuPaul's Drag Race will now only start on 26 June on VUZU.

It's not clear where Eject Media and Picture Tree got the episode to show the GoggleBox SA families, since it wasn't broadcast on DStv and therefore also couldn't be recorded. Passion Distribution is responsible for the international distribution and licensing of the World of Wonder produced RuPaul's Drag Race.

The inclusion of the "staged" programme that never aired but was presented in GoggleBox SA as being on TV in South Africa and Africa on DStv, is damaging to the authenticity of the show and Sony Channel's reputation.

"GoggleBox South Africa is a past 7 days review show, where our households review programmes which have aired in the past 7 days," says Sonja Underwood, Sony Channel territory director in a statement to TVwithThinus.

"Due to the fast turnaround of the show, some of the programmes are watched live and some are pre-recorded as the filming schedules don't allow for the live viewing of all programmes."

"Confirmed channel highlights are used when deciding on which shows to feature in each episode. Unfortunately there was an unforeseen schedule change resulting in the show in question not being broadcast," says Sonja Underwood.

How Sony Channel's GoggleBox South Africa is cheating viewers; people made to believe that families are watch DStv content that's not been shown on DStv.

The Sony Channel and Gogglebox South Africa have so far remained silent on how its cheating DStv viewers by showing how families are purportedly watching content on MultiChoice's satellite pay-TV platform - although it was never actually broadcast.

Serious questions are now being raised over Gogglebox SA's production integrity and the show's authenticity.

It comes after DStv viewers are apparently being duped following the latest episode of the show, broadcast this past Thursday night, that showed how families were watching RuPaul's Drag Race on M-Net's VUZU channel on DStv.

The problem is that the show the families "watched" never aired.

The Sony Channel (DStv 127) showed that the first episode of the 8th season of RuPaul's Drag Race - the show's 100th episode - was watched by the GoggleBox SA families while it was actually never shown on either the VUZU or VUZU AMP channels in the first place.

That made it virtually impossible for the several families included in GoggleBox South Africa to really have watched it as they were shown doing in a lengthy part of the episode on Thursday night on the Sony Channel.

On screen, GoggleBox SA credited VUZU AMP channel and World of Wonder Productions, but M-Net's VUZU says RuPaul's Drag Race isn't actually on its schedule and line-up at all as either a first-run new season or as any repeats.

Vuzu told viewers who asked how it's possible that Gogglebox South Africa is showing families watching RuPaul's Drag Race on the Sony Channel, that the drag show reality competition show "will not be airing on VUZU AMP due to an oversight relating to the content licence deal".

Vuzu told TVwithThinus in response to a media enquiry that RuPaul's Drag Race "has been pushed back due to an oversight with the content licence deal" and that it will now only start on Sunday, 26 June at 22:00 and on the VUZU (DStv 116) channel, not VUZU AMP.

Gogglebox SA is the first local South African TV production for Sony Pictures Television's Sony Channel in South Africa and Africa, and is produced by Eject Media and Picture Tree.

The apparently staged "viewing" with in-show families watching DStv content that isn't actually on TV, raises questions about how real and authentic Gogglebox SA is.

The show's whole premise is predicated on showing viewers at home how others viewers in South Africa are responding to what everybody can watch on television and the content that was shown on MultiChoice's DStv in the previous week.

Before launch, the Sony Channel touted the show's authenticity, saying the "topical show is filmed 7 days before the episode airs, allowing viewers to observe the households watching the week's TV shows, encouraging up-to-date discussions".

Gogglebox South Africa and the Sony Channel's territory director Sonja Underwood have not responded yet to a media enquiry made last week after the airing of the episode about how it was possible for the families to watch RuPaul's Drag Race on Gogglebox SA and DStv if the show wasn't broadcast and isn't on television at all.

Sony Channel says it is looking into the matter and is working in the issue.

It's not clear if there's possibly been other programming from the range of DStv channels included in the previous 6 episodes of Gogglebox SA that families were shown to be watching that might also not actually have been broadcast on MultiChoice's pay-TV service at the time of those episodes' recording.

Also not clear is where the shown footage for RuPaul's Drag Race comes from and how it was acquired in the first place.

It wasn't possible for the families in the show to watch it live on DStv sitting on their couches, or as a recording since it wasn't shown in the South African territory, yet the production somehow has the episode and showed families responding to it while watching it.

ALSO READ: The Sony Channel blames fast turnaround times with filming GoggleBox SA, for showing DStv viewers the families watching a show that never aired.

Part 1 of 3: WHAT GOGGLEBOX SA TAUGHT US: What Gogglebox South Africa on the Sony Channel actually reveals about MultiChoice's DStv and repeats.

This is part 1 in a 3-part series about educational reflections and observations regarding Gogglebox South Africa.


Five episodes in, there's something that Gogglebox South Africa on the Sony Channel (DStv 127) on Thursday nights at 21:00 actually perfectly illustrates about MultiChoice's DStv and repeats.

What do you think it is?

It's that the majority of the complaints and incessant rants from DStv subscribers about too many repeats and rebroadcasts of old content are actually largely unfounded and uninformed.

Why?

Well, look closely. While it would be disingenuous to hypothesize based on a single show like Gogglebox South Africa that all DStv subscriber complaints regarding repeats should be dismissed outright, using just the empirical evidence from the five episodes on the Sony Channel so far, it's actually very clear that DStv repeats are not the massive, big, bad, insane, evil, unending, cheating, robbing, overstated problem a lot of people are making it out to be.

Instead, it seems more likely - as I've felt for a long time (now check my own confirmation bias!) - that the majority of DStv subscribers who are complaining about repeats are doing so because of two issues inherent in themselves and their own unevolved TV viewing patterns.

Firstly, perhaps a lot of people complaining about DStv repeats are too lazy when watching TV and should be more pro-active about finding programming that they haven't seen before.

Secondly, perhaps people complaining about repeats are watching DStv with too much of a tunnel-vision, unwilling to expose themselves to shows, programming and channels they don't know, think they won't like, and simply dismiss, instead of trying it and widening their scope of what they watch and follow.

Keep this in mind about Gogglebox South Africa:
- The various family permutations are from a wide and very big representative cross-section of South African society.
- They all enjoy (or at the very least have big reactions to) all of the content they're watching.

After five episodes of Gogglebox South Africa, none of the families have watched the same thing on DStv twice (with the exception of M-Net's The Voice South Africa which featured twice in two different episodes).

Everything they've watched is new to them (although a lot of it is actually old and not first-run content).

In other words: Everything they saw on the various DStv channels have been new to all of them - although not all the content is actually "new".

None of the families are watching anything they would call a "repeat", although some of it has been shown multiple times, and yet none of them have ever bothered to see it or by chance found it and watched it.

All of the Gogglebox South Africa families watched the old Disney movie UP on M-Net Movies. None of them have yet seen it, none of them knew it, and none could predict the story's ending.

A lot of them haven't seen Snakes on a Plane; only one person have seen the old (great) film Big from 1988 with Tom Hanks on TCM years before.

Absolutely none of them have watched The Impossible on M-Net Movies before which has been shown several times already on TV. Yet they were all engrossed and had a very emotional reaction to the visceral story.

All of the Gogglebox South Africa families watched an episode from the first season of Four Weddings SA on Lifetime. None of them saw it the first time. The first season is currently on its umpteenth rebroadcast and what they actually watched is an episode that was shown back in October 2015 - 5 months ago!

The same goes for things like The Hunt on BBC Earth (a rebroadcast) and Secret Life of Babies and The Vikings are Coming (BBC Lifestyle)- old content that's been shown before; yet somehow none (and remember the families are from a wide spectrum of households) have watched before.

The families are "forced" to watch movies like Selma - clearly something none of them have watched, but then all enjoy - TV content they would not have chosen themselves.

White people watched Clash of the Choirs, Utatakho and Our Perfect Wedding on Mzansi Magic - clearly shows none of them have ever watched before and very likely wouldn't choose themselves. And surprise ... they enjoyed it.

Black families watched the older local movie Spud about a white kid at a white KZN boarding school and very likely wouldn't choose themselves. And surprise ... they enjoyed it.

None of the families have ever watched Checkpoint on eNCA, its regular weekly investigative magazine show - yet they all responded to it and became emotional, angry and involved with the story of injustice they were shown.

The same with the documentary He Named me Malala on the National Geographic Channel. How many families would have watched this without being prompted, and yet they were all visibly moved (literally to tears).

Several of them had/have no clue and are clearly not following and never watched even one episode of Empire (already in its second season) or The People vs OJ Simpson (both) on FOX. Both are good series television. Ditto for Code Black on M-Net.

What does it mean?

It means that there's a lot of content spread across DStv that DStv subscribers are too lazy too find, or too lazy to sample, that they too quickly dismiss out of hand although they would perhaps actually like it, and that there's clearly a lot of brand-new and "old new" content people are paying for but simply have never seen.

As a TV critic I never watch repeats. Every day is literally a battle to keep up with just new content coming to viewers now or soon and to try and watch it, read and report about it and to structure and plan and diarise when to fit that content consumption in.

It's not necessary for ordinary DStv subscribers to ever be that frenetic as a TV critic.

But with a little more pro-active planning, with a little more willingness to "experiment", and with a little less "plonking down and switching on waiting to be served" the ordinary DStv subscriber can elevate and reduce not only your perceived level of repeats and watch more "new" stuff, but also learn to like more new stuff.

I'm not saying DStv repeats are not a problem.

I'm suggesting that DStv repeats are not as big a problem as people want to make it, and that a part of the problem is actually viewers not taking enough responsibility and not making enough effort for making sure they find content that's new for them on an ongoing basis.

Find a place where you find the best TV guide for yourself and make it a habit of going back to it daily, weekly or whenever. Make it work for you. Make it functional and use it to plan a bit better when to watch something or when to record something.

Stop randomly plopping down in front of the telly and then expecting something brand-new and interesting to simply be on your default channel. That is most likely the cause of complaining about seeing something yet again you've seen before.

Watch something new you've never tried watching. Tune to a channel, tune in for a show, record something if you can that you've never watched before or thought you'd not be interested in.

Who knows, maybe you find a new favourite or more "new" things to constantly watch - just like the Gogglebox SA families who are being exposed to more "new" TV that they haven't watched before.

You are not all that different from the Gogglebox South Africa families - and yet they are watching stuff that's new to them during the course of the week, every week.

Isn't it time that you start complaining less about "DStv repeats" and make your own plan to use what is already available, to also watch some more of all the things you've never seen before?

REVIEW. Gogglebox South Africa on the Sony Channel successfully runs like an Easter egg hunt, constantly compelling the viewer to stay for just that one little bit more.

Gogglebox South Africa on the Sony Channel (DStv 127) is bubblegum television: a personalised TV version of the director's commentary you find on your favourite movie DVD, with a surprisingly soft centre.

"Who knew it would be such an emotional show?" remarks one of the viewers in the debut episode of the localised South African version of the format show, and her comment is as apt for Gogglebox SA itself.

Gogglebox South Africa's first episode included families watching Moment of Truth (Sony Channel), The Moaning of Life (BBC Brit), Spud on M-Net, The Impossible, violent university protests on eNCA, The People vs OJ Simpson: American Crime Story (FOX) and The Voice South Africa (M-Net).

It felt highly reminiscent of the first time specifically Big Brother South Africa and The Jerry Springer Show were broadcast on South African television: watching people on TV, doing something you've never seen them do on TV before.

Like those two shows, the crux of Gogglebox SA is people watching people being people within the parameters of various heightened emotional states, and the new sensation of it makes for compelling viewing.

Viewers at home take their cue from the emotional yardstick of the viewers in the show, who are reacting to the emotional scenes show to them involving people.

Well executed and edited with a cotillion of instantly identifiable and likeable "family" groupings who comment on what they see, Gogglebox SA keeps serving up the same emotional snack over and over to viewers but with slight differentiation.

Using the same template and pattern that makes gambling, Candy Crush, going on a rollercoaster and watching race cars go by just one more time, all so addictive, Gogglebox SA will draw you in and keep you transfixed if you let it, serving up an unending stream of bite-sized, mood-injecting video chunks.

Although Gogglebox South Africa isn't tabloid programming like the recently cancelled The Soup on E!, it is in essence also a clip show - with added commentary - about very visceral, eye-popping and emotionally combustible content.

On the periodic table, Gogglebox South Africa (with language and some content not suitable for younger viewers) will fit in nicely right next to hydrogen - emotionally uplifting, quickly spinning between positive and negative charges, an energy carrier, and of course being highly flammable.

Like puppies at the dog show, every single family in Gogglebox SA has clearly been hand-picked for perfection - there's not an ugly one in sight.

The big plus point of the Eject Media and Picture Tree production is that the show found extremely well-informed content curators - people who know what's inside shows and can trigger reactions.

Thankfully the production and Sony Pictures Television allowed these right choices to go through that can and do elicit "big" reactions.

Television thrives, and drives, on melodrama.

While basically none of the families have seen and been exposed to content like The Impossible, Spud or The People vs OJ Simpson, I've seen all those as a TV critic, creating the added dramatic irony of knowing and watching these families - knowing what highly emotionally charged scenes they are going to see, and knowing that they won't be able to not react.

In that sense Gogglebox SA, executive produced by Stephan Le Roux and Gary King, is slightly emotionally exploitative - it plays with people's emotions and zooms in for that awe, shock or surprise reaction you know they surely are going to have. Then again, what TV game show isn't?

Although it has an assembly line quality to it, Gogglebox SA isn't boring - it runs like an Easter egg hunt where the emotional pay-off remains exciting even after finding 10 eggs for your basket in the garden. You're still prepared to stay for more.

Respect should also go to whoever is responsible for neatly managing to pack in comments as a type of overlay voice-over in-between the already-there dialogue of the film or TV episode family members are watching.

There's very little cross-talk and "talking over" which would quickly have detracted from Gogglebox SA and have made it difficult to really follow and "hear" the show.

The viewer at home hears one person at a time and its clearly because the sound editing and prepping of the families have been meticulously done made that way.  

Sony Channel's Gogglebox SA cleverly captures what makes people watching at your local supermarket and at the airport so successful when you go with grandma who's old enough to no longer care about having a filter: You get to hear someone else say out loud exactly what you are seeing and thinking.

EXCLUSIVE. Sony Channel on DStv is the brand-new name of Sony Entertainment Television (SET) as the channel rebrands with a new look.

You're reading it here first.

The Sony Channel (DStv 127) on MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV platform in South Africa and the rest of Africa is the brand-new name of Sony Entertainment Television (SET) following a rebranding and simplified renaming of the popular general entertainment channel from Sony Pictures Television (SPT).

The simplified name change from Sony Entertainment Television (SET) to Sony Channel appears to be the first such rebranding of the channel which is available internationally in several countries and territories.

The Sony Channel will be 7 years old in South Africa in a month and a half's time since it first launched on 2 November 2007 on DStv in South Africa.

The Sony Channel became the home of highly rated series like The Amazing Race, Hannibal, Drop Dead Diva, NCIS, Friends, CSI and several American talk shows.

According to sources the rebranding of Sony Entertainment Television only pertains to the Sony Channel, not sister channel Sony MAX (DStv 128).

The new on-air look of the Sony Channel made its debut this morning just after 06:00 on DStv during The Arsenio Hall Show with beautiful new multi-coloured on-air idents to signal and indicate different programming genres.

Blue signify comedy, red signify drama, green signify reality and yellow is now used for movies.

The former three-tiered name in white is now shorter and stacks over just two lines, saying just "Sony Channel", having done away with the long "Entertainment" and "Television" for a simpler, cleaner appearance whilst maintaining the Sony "S".

The new Sony Channel logo and on-air imaging utilise shiny, high-gloss, flipping "micro tiles" to create a "wave" effect and looks beautiful.