Four South African stand-up comedians - Loyiso Gola, Loyiso Madinga, Tumi Morake and Riaad Moosa - included in Netflix's new Global Comedy event series.

Four South African stand-up comedians - Loyiso Gola, Loyiso Madinga, Tumi Morake and Riaad Moosa (pictured) - are included in the global streaming service Netflix's Global Comedy event series, with all episodes of the as-yet-untitled series that will be released at once sometime in 2019.

Netflix will bring together 47 comedians from 13 territories worldwide for the series, with each comedian who will perform a half-hour stand-up special.

Recording will take place in 7 different languages - including French, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Dutch, German, and English - and will include comedians from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the Middle East.

Some of their stand-up routines will be recorded at the upcoming Just for Laughs Festival in Montreal, Canada between 24 and 29 July, with recording that will also take place in Brazil, Mexico, India, Germany and the Netherlands.

"Few things are better than discovering a new comedian you love," says Lisa Nishimura, vice president of original documentary and comedy for Netflix. "With this event, we're creating a true comedy festival experience for our members where they can scour the globe from home to find some of the freshest voices in comedy."

SAVAGE NO-SHOW. As Naomi Campbell and Nigerian singer Tiwa Savage both ditched SABC3's late night show #WTFTumi, presenter Tumi Morake slams disrespectful Tiwa for her trashy behaviour that left producers scrambling.

The former supermodel Naomi Campbell and the Nigerian singer Tiwa Savage both became no-shows on Monday's episode of the late night talk show #WTFTumi on SABC3 that left producers scrambling, with presenter Tumi Morake slamming the Nigerian artist for simply driving off and calling the disrespectful Tiwa Savage out over her shockingly bad behaviour.

While SABC3 announced that Naomi Campbell would be on #WTFTumi on Monday night's episode, Naomi - although unfortunate - pre-cancelled, with producers who knew with some time to plan, that the former supermodel won't make the show anymore.

Both Naomi Campbell and Tiwa Savage were in Johannesburg, South Africa, for the media launch of some charity thing called Global Citizen Festival where American artists will perform.

While Naomi Campbell cancelled ahead of time, although after SABC3 already made the announcement that she would be on, Tiwa Savage was still booked and a lock to make an appearance on #WTFTumi produced by Urban Brew Studios.

Monday night was supposed to be the celebration of the show's first birthday, with #WTFTumi currently in its second season.

Tiwa Savage on Monday suddenly arrived at the studio simply to tell producers that she will no longer be available to appear on #WTFTumi at 22:00 for the live show.

Urban Brew Studios producers then scrambled to try and do a pre-recorded insert and interview with Tiwa Savage but the Nigerian singer got in her vehicle and sped off, leaving flabbergasted producers behind who had to scramble to try and come up with a new guest.

Tumi Morake slammed Tiwa Savage's trash behaviour and told HuffPost SA that she "quite disrespectfully and unapologetically, arrived, said she wouldn't wait for us to go live at 22:00 and as we scrambled to prerecord her quickly, she drove off".

Tiwa Savage was replaced by singer Simphiwe Dana who filled in for Naomi Campbell and Tiwa Savage's absence.

Tumi Morake explained that #WTFTumi producers create and customise games and other in-show content specifically for who the guests are going to be ahead of time - something that obviously takes time and research.

"When they cancel right there in front of you, it is a huge scramble for everyone and affects other guests. The last minute drop was really uncalled for. I was flabbergasted when I was running to the studio and a crew member comes to me and says, 'she has driven off'. I was like, what? After all of that!"

Do MultiChoice Call Centre staffers need sensitivity training? After a mom with a Down syndrome child complains about Tumi Morake's Down syndrome 'joke' on Comedy Central, MultiChoice asks her if she would have reacted the same way if she went to the recording of the show.

MultiChoice Call Centre staffers in Randburg are seriously in need of some urgent sensitivity training after a DStv helpline operator had the audacity to ask a mother with a Down syndrome child who called and complained about Tumi Morake's crass Comedy Central's (DStv 122) Down syndrome joke, if she would have laughed if she went to the recording of the show.

Meanwhile MultiChoice and Comedy Central continues to broadcast the Comedy Central Roast Battle with comedian Tumi Morake's degrading Down syndrome "joke". 

Several complaints have been lodged by parents with Down syndrome children at the Broadcasting Complaints Commission of South Africa (BCCSA) against Viacom International Media Networks Africa's (VIMN Africa) Comedy Central and MultiChoice's DStv.

The BCCSA case will be heard in early 2018.

In Comedy Central's Comedy Central Roast Battle, Tumi Morake filth-slammed comedian Schalk Bezuidenhout, saying "You are two p- klaps away from Down syndrome, bitch".

Tumi Morake has apologised on social media in a Facebook posting, but angry and upset parents who are also DStv subscribers say that's not enough and have also called MultiChoice to complain.

When mother of as 12-year old Down syndrome child, Baatile Mofokeng from Atteridgeville called the MultiChoice Call Centre and complained about the Comedy Central episode, the MultiChoice Call Centre operator apparently asked her if she would have complained and reacted the same way if she went to the actual recording of the show.

Comedian Tumi Morake apologises for her degrading Down syndrome joke on Comedy Central, begs for forgiveness: 'I wasn't thinking'.

Comedian Tumi Morake is apologising for her degrading and insulting "joke" about Down syndrome during an episode of the Comedy Central Roast Battle series on Comedy Central (DStv 122) that has landed her and Viacom International Media Networks Africa in hot water.

Parents of Down syndrome children have laid complaints with the Broadcast Complaints Commission of South Africa (BCCSA) and slammed Tumi Morake after her side-swipe to fellow comedian Schalk Bezuidenhout in a broadcast of Comedy Central Roast Battle on Comedy Central (DStv 122) when she said "You [Bezuidenhout] are two p- klaps away from Down syndrome, bitch".

Tumi Morake has now made a Facebook apology after a mom with a Down syndrome child confronted the comedian on social media and told Tumi on Instagram that she was "very, very disappointed" by the comedian's "hurtful" comments. "As a parent of a child with down syndrome this was hurtful and just unacceptable".

The BCCSA has also received written complaints and will be looking at the case in early 2018.

In her Facebook apology, Tumi Morake begs for forgiveness and says "A while ago we did the Roast Comedy Battle and in the height of insulting each other I used Down syndrome in a punchline".

"I apologise unreservedly for my comments. I do not condone in any way the discrimination against or the ignorance around people with DS."

"My niece also has Down syndrome. It was a comedy environment, I wasn't thinking, we were just going for the punch, I apologise unreservedly. It won't make it right but I hope you hear that I acknowledge the insensitivity of it."

"I hope you can forgive me. I have just watched the clip back and you have every right to be upset. Again, it really was not out to discriminate or hurt."

Tumi Morake said that she wasn't looking to be harmful or hurtful with her comments.

"I do not condone in any way the discrimination against or the ignorance around people with DS. I hope the parents of children with Down syndrome and people living with it find it in their hearts to forgive me."

"I was not out to harm and I own up to how hurtful, thoughtless, harmful and ignorant it was. I will do my best to make it right and it will be as public as the way the offence came".

Earlier in 2017 Phat Joe caused controversy at East Coast Radio when he said on his drive time afternoon show that he was "feeling Down syndrome-ish" - an offence that saw East Coast Radio fined R30 000 following complaints to the BCCSA.

In July 2014 the BCCSA fined the Afrikaans M-Net supplied channel kykNET (DStv 144) on MultiChoice's DStv platform R30 000 following public complaints that the satirical show Proesstraat was mocking Tourette's syndrome sufferers on television after kykNET was warned to stop using Tourette's syndrome for humour.

kykNET appealed the ruling that was overturned after kykNET's legal team argued that kykNET has the right to broadcast humour even if that comedy offends kykNET's audience.

RATINGS JULY 2017: Bold and Bonang are rating disasters - while David Tlale and Tumi Morake also flop and the SABC continues to shed viewers.

The struggling SABC continues to lose millions of viewers with SABC2 and SABC3 that again saw ratings and audience share losses in July while strikingly all the new celebrity-driven shows on public and pay-TV from David Thlale's The Intern SA, Tumi Morake's #WTFTumi and even Being Bonang are big viewership flops.

July's just-released audience ratings (AR) data shows that the struggling SABC continues to lose millions of viewers.

Only SABC1 managed to keep its audience share stable while the troubled SABC2 and SABC3 continued their tumble and again shed eyeballs in July.

July is also the month that the SABC finally managed to kill The Bold and the Beautiful. After shoddy treatment and ongoing disastrous timeslot changes for the once-popular American soap, the show suffered month-on-month viewership plunges and is now no longer on the already low-rated SABC3's list of its most watched shows.

Viewers are not bothering to watch David Tlale's The Intern SA and Tumi Morake's talk show on SABC3 that both failed to find any significant number of viewers, together with possibly the biggest surprise of all: Bonang Matheba's Being Bonang.

Her reality show isn't managing to pull significant viewers to VUZU AMP possibly because it's placed on the wrong M-Net packaged channel on DStv.

Elsewhere the SABC1 weekday soap Uzalo reached its highest viewership yet, e.tv keeps doing well, and the 13th season of Idols is again a ratings hit showing that the reality singing competition has several more seasons of life left.

SABC1
While SABC1's overall viewership remained stable during July, the KwaMashu-set weekday soap Uzalo on the channel continued its ratings surge, luring its biggest audience yet in July since the start of the soap.

In July Uzalo continued its rise as South Africa's most watched TV show with a series high rating of 8.896 million viewers (26.4 AR) and a whopping 70.6% share for its most watched episode.

It managed to further widen the slow growing gap between Generations - The Legacy in second place with 8.56 million viewers ( 25.4 AR / 68.2 share) that also grew its audience.

Over-achiever Skeem Saam marginally improved its strong performance, growing to 7.29 million viewers for its most watched episode.

Evenly maintaining their viewers were both the Xhosa (4.0 million) and Zulu (4.2 million) TV news bulletins and Now or Never (3.6 million), while Selimathunzi was slightly off with 3.91 million viewers.

Growing for the third consecutive month was Throwback Thursday to 4.03 million viewers. Khumbul' Ekhaya improved back to 3.4  from a low 3 million viewers.

Down and losing viewers were Mina Nawe (3.82 million), Live Amp (3.6 million), Ithuba Lokugcina (3.7 million) and Stumbo Stomp (3.64 million) while Friends Like These plunged from its 3.6 million viewers just a few months ago to 3.17 million at most in July.

SABC2
SABC2 continues its journey on the ratings train to trouble.

While nowhere near the ratings disaster of SABC3, SABC2's slow but ongoing viewership erosion should be extremely worrisome for SABC TV executives who haven't been able to stem the bleeding.

Also problematic is that, similar to SABC3, a lot of the newly commissioned local shows on SABC2 turned out to be rating flops, failing to find traction with viewers.

In July Muvhango remained the most watched show on SABC2 with 5.48 million viewers (16.3 AR / 51.6 share) and although up from June, it's far off from earlier months this year when it lured 6.4 million.

Since April Muvhango has lost almost a million viewers - and that's for SABC2's top show.

In July Vodacom Siyakha fell from 3.9 to 3.52 million viewers while the Live Lotto Draw lost over a million viewers from 4.5 to 3.3 million viewers.

Also down was Speak Out (2.12 to 2.07 million) and Wipeout USA (1.37 to 1.31 million). (Interestingly Wipeout USA is also on e.tv where it lured 2.11 million viewers - almost double - that indicates what is actually possible ratings wise.)

Thola remained flat at 1.64 million from 1.65 in June.

Meanwhile Thursdays continue to kill the once-popular Noot vir Noot. The Afrikaans music competition literally has lost half its total audience and SABC2 share.

In July it scraped out 1.25 million viewers (10.6% share) compared to the 2.12 million viewers and 20.7% share it brought to SABC2 in January when the show was still in its Friday night timeslot before the bad move.

The Afrikaans soap 7de Laan has recovered somewhat from its disastrous ratings levels and at 2.63 million viewers and a 26.5% is almost back at its 2.78 million of January after its ratings took a shocking months' long plunge.

Marginally up on SABC2 was telenovela Keeping Score (1.74 to 2.04 million), Ga Re Dumele (1.22 to 1.54 million) and rebroadcast Vetkoekpaleis (1.28 to 1.4 million).

The Afrikaans TV news bulletin bounced back a bit to 1.48 million from 1.34 in June and the Sotho/Tswana TV news at 1.31 million in July seems to be recovering although its far off from its 1.8 million viewers it had when 2017 began.

SABC3
With ongoing anemic ratings, July will go down as the historic month the SABC finally killed off the American soap The Bold and the Beautiful while more viewers chose to watch a repeat of the old Vetkoekpaleis than a lot of the channel's costly new local shows.

While Bold was a top performer on SABC3 for several years since its move from SABC1, July is the month the public broadcaster finally killed it through multiple and steadily worsening timeslots until its audience finally abandoned the Forresters.

On SABC3 Bold's ratings dramatically plunged from 1.05 million in January 2017 to 890 100 (February), 665 445 (March), 469 814 (April), 585 828 (May) and 465 067 (June) to entirely dropping off SABC3's list of 20 most watched shows in July.

Nothing else signifies more SABC3's ongoing ratings and programming woes than what happened with Bold and American sister soap Days of Our Lives now jumping to e.tv.

Before the disastrous tampering, both consistently delivered top-rated and strong viewership to SABC3 in their stable timeslots and with audiences that advertisers knew and could count on.

The big problem is that no new shows that are trusted and consistent performers on every weekday replaced them after the SABC decided that it wanted to kill off Days and Bold and with advertisers who are reluctant to spend money on inconsistent audiences.

With barely there viewership its no longer possible to call anything on SABC3 a "hit", although weekday local soap Isidingo is the channel's most watched show, slightly increasing its viewership from 1.45 to 1.6 million in July.

Every local new show on SABC3 is a costly ratings disaster, with David Tlale's flopped design competition The Intern SA, Khanyi Mbau's The Scoop, China Diaries, #WTFTumi! and It's OK, We're Family that all started in July and failed to attract any significant audiences.

These local show flops are all similar to the trend of SABC3's last few months that saw its first, second and third batches of local programming that got rolled out and getting shunned by viewers.

Literally not one of SABC3's crop of new shows manages to lure enough viewers except for local talk show Real Talk with Anele managing 479 698 viewers for its most watched episode in July and Dinner Date with 466 271 viewers.

In July SABC3 viewers continued to watch Top Billing (422 400), the English TV news bulletin (608 162), the end of Survivor San Juan Del Sur (561 416) and the start of Survivor: Worlds Apart (514 452), and The Big Bang Theory (448 329).

e.tv
The red letter channel keeps growing - very likely because of the SABC's woes as more viewers are switching over to the commercial free-to-air channel.

Weekday soap Scandal! grew to its second highest viewership this year (since March) with 4.65 million viewers in July with sister soap Rhythm City stable at 3.13 million viewers, while local telenovelas Broken Vows and Harvest remain ratings disappointments and continue to be no-shows on e.tv's top 20 most watched list.

e.tv decided to end it but WWE Raw pulled 2.71 million in its swansong with WWE SmackDown going out with 1.9 million viewers.

e.tv continues to do incredibly well with a spread of quality movies and local and international series.

The channel cornered over 2.1 million and more viewers each for the three Hangover movies on three July Sundays, 2.24 million viewers for The Incredibles, 2 million viewers each for Finding Nemo and Monsters Inc and a massive 2.9 million for Cars.

Another 2.1 million watched the reality show Mahadi-Lobola with Lip Sync Battle Africa (1.91 million), Z'Bondiwe (1.9 million) and American comedy Modern Family (1.72 million) all firm rating hits.


DStv
On pay-TV Idols roared back as a TV hit, with the start of the 13th season on Mzansi Magic (DStv 161) hitting 1.57 million viewers on MultiChoice's DStv.

With that Idols gaining a second place behind perennial top-achiever Our Perfect Wedding (also on Mzansi Magic) further growing its audience from 1.49 to 1.84 million viewers.

New Sunday night grit-drama iNumber Number (also on Mzansi Magic) drew 1.36 million viewers to secure the top 3rd place on DStv's most watched list, followed by Igazi that dropped slightly from 1.44 to 1.42 million viewers.

Mzansi Magic royalty keeps rounding out the top shows on MultiChoice's platform with The Queen (1.13 million), Isibaya (1.01 million), Date My Family (1.04 million), Isikizi (793 700), Isithunzi (767 490), and Isithembiso (729 626) that round out the top 11 most watched shows on DStv.

M-Net likely made a mistake by placing Bonang Matheba's new reality show Being Bonang on VUZU AMP (DStv 103) instead of on Mzansi Magic.

Being Bonang on VUZU AMP failed to lure significant viewers following its debut in mid-July, while reality show Living the Dream with Somizi on Mzansi Magic managed 559 373 viewers and a 15th place on DStv's most watched list for July.

SABC3 adds a new two-nightly show, What the F*ck Tumi, with Tumi Morake from Urban Brew Studios that the show says stands for 'Why the Fuss'.

The SABC is adding a new two-nightly show, What the Fuck Tumi, abbreviated as a hashtag moniker #WTFTumi from Wednesday 5 July at 21:30, that the show says stands for "Why the Fuss?"

"Why the Fuss?" is however not the words that will be conjured up by the SABC's viewing audience on SABC3 or people reading scanning over SABC3's schedule listings in newspapers when they see #WTFTumi.

With its dubious title, the South African public broadcaster's offensively titled Urban Brew Studios show will be broadcast every Wednesday and Thursday at 21:30.

According to Wiktionary and other sources, the primary meaning of "WTF" is "What the Fuck" but the show says its name "will see a play on the acronym 'WTF'. The 'WTF' acronym will lend itself to mean something different in each episode, from ‘Why The Fuss’ to ‘Where’s The Friday’".

#WTFTumi produced by Urban Brew Studios is one of the latest new production spenders from the cash-strapped South African public broadcaster and will "look at what has recently got South Africans talking".

#WTFTumi joins a crowded SABC3 programming line-up that already includes shows like Real Talk with Anele by Anele Mdoda, as well as Trending - both also "looking at what has recently got South Africans talking".

It's not clear why SABC3 wants yet another talk show about trending topics courting a social media audience instead of viewership.

#WTFTumi will see Tumi Morake talk with guests "about the lighter side of their lives with a bit of 'snooping' and interactive games" while they're in a lounge, bar or jacuzzi.

#WTFTumi will also see Tumi Morake engage with a studio audience "and share a bit of banter with her barman" - stealing from the concept started by Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen on America's Bravo channel.

"I am always excited to try something new. This show is raw and unapologetic, especially since it is a late night slot, I can afford to be naughty because the kids have already gone off to bed," says Tumi Morake in a statement.

"We are looking forward to venturing into this new project with Tumi. There are so many creative things planned and we just can’t wait to share them with the viewers," says Adelaide Joshua Hill, Urban Brew Studios head of unscripted productions.