TV NEWS ROUND-UP. Today's interesting TV stories to read from TVwithThinus - 24 January 2019.

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

■ Clamping down after protests, Sudan denies press credentials to two foreign journalists.
Sudan's non-existent press freedom gets worse as journalists from Saudi Arabia's Al Arabiya TV news channel and Turkey's Anadolu news agency are blocked from reporting from Sudan.

■ Half of all Indian pay-TV subscribers haven't yet chosen the TV channels they want to pay for.
India switching to new choose-your-own-channels system from 1 February but  50% of the 165 million pay-TV subscribers haven't done so yet.

■ Highlander that started out as films, then 2 TV series and getting a film reboot might turn into it being a new TV series.

■ China and CNN International (DStv 401) in a row over a report detailing 9 people who died in a detention camp in Xinjiang.

■ How new docudrama series Valley of the Boom on National Geographic (DStv 181 / StarSat 220 / Cell C black 262), a story of tech-disruption, deliberately disrupts TV too.

■ Analysts: Disney's own video streaming service, Disney+ that it will launch later in 2019 will bring further disruption to the pay-TV market.

■ Why Netflix is positioned to survive the growing new "TV bubble".
The current peak TV content era is simply unsustainable.

■ New Ghana online TV channel, A Plus, plans to expose Ghana's allegedly corrupt minister of communications, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful.

■ Owner of Cyprus TV channel claims he bribed 2 broadcasting authority officials with kickbacks.

National Geographic's new docu-drama series, Valley of the Boom, starts Sunday, tracking Silicon Valley's boom-to-bust in the 1990s with Netscape, theglobe.com and Pixelon.

The new docu-drama series, Valley of the Boom, recounting America's boom-to-bust story of the technology-internet upstart area known as "Silicon Valley" is starting on Sunday 20 January at 20:00 on National Geographic (DStv 181 / StarSat 220 / Cell C black 262).

Created by Matthew Carnahan, Valley of the Boom tries to tell the story of the rise and fall and rise of Silicon Valley, blending documentary style interview with real-life subjects, together with scripted storylines, similar to National Geographic's MARS that just concluded it's second season.

Set during the 1990s in Silicon Valley, the 6-episode Valley of the Boom has Bradley Whitford, Steve Zahn and Lamorne Morris as part of the cast, with Matthew Carnahan as showrunner and Arianna Huffington as executive producer.

Valley of the Boom follows the turbulent ride of 3 different companies whose founders were trying to change the world using the new technology of the internet. 

Before Google, Netscape pioneered the first commercial web browser and launched the so-called "browser wars" with Microsoft. 

Before Facebook, theglobe.com was a rapidly expanding social networking site built by dreamers on a university campus. And before YouTube, a con artist on the run from the FBI reinvented himself in Silicon Valley to start a streaming video company called Pixelon, resulting in an entrepreneurial rise and fall almost too insane to be believed.

"Our society is internet-dependent but most of us are not familiar with many of the visionaries who brought the web into existence and battled for its soul," says Matthew Carnahan.

"In Valley of the Boom I focused on telling the humorous, messy and real stories of these inventors, investors and con men. The goal is that the way in which the story is told is as disruptive as these figures themselves."

TV NEWS ROUND-UP. Today's interesting TV stories to read from TVwithThinus - 12 January 2019.

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

■ Sherwin Bryce-Pease, the SABC's US and United Nations correspondent, based in New York, is in South Africa.
"At one point George Clooney leans over to me and says..." - Sherwin Bryce-Pease dish about his time as president of the United Nations Correspondents Association.

■ MultiChoice Nigeria again has to emphatically tell Nigerians that DStv won't operate a "pay-as-you-view' system in the West African country.
"We are not going to do it. Our contracts with our suppliers are on a month-to-month basis. The channels do not belong to MultiChoice."

■ The SABC in 2019 - New year, same problems.
Rebecca Sibanda, legal assistant at the Centre for Constitutional Rights, writes that Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams, South Africa's latest minister of communications, has very little time to help turn this sinking ship around or the broadcaster may fail.

■ Seattle TV station fires video editor for doctoring footage of American president Donald Trump given a Cheetos-orange tint, a larger than normal head and his tongue hanging out.

■ Comedy Central (DStv 122) rolls out its first rebrand in 8 years.
No word yet from Viacom International Media Networks Africa (VIMN Africa) on when the new look from US-based studio Loyalkaspar will be seen in South Africa and Africa.

■ Penn Badgley who was Gossip Girl, wants people to stop lusting after his character in You on Netflix who is not just a stalker but a murderer.

■ The showrunner of Star Trek: Discovery seen on Netflix, on the upcoming second season shakeup.
The Spock viewers meet in season 2 is not there yet.

■ Simply bizarre: Why is The Orville, seen on FOX (DStv 125 / StarSat 131 / Cell C black 201) trolling viewers getting rid of its female security chief?
Just like when Tasha Yar left Star Trek The Next Generation abruptly and prematurely, Alara Kitan (Halston Sage) has left the Orville.
■ Is Alara (Halston Sage) gone permanently?

■ The Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) dumps R. Kelly's music from its music playlists while in South Africa the SABC doesn't feel a need arose following the multiple allegations of rape and abuse of the singer.

■ The upcoming new docu-drama Valley of the Boom on National Geographic (DStv 181 / StarSat 221 / Cell C 262) about the rise of Silicon Valley, that like MARS has talking heads experts in-between dramatic story, is too jarring here, awkward, and disjointed in an off-putting fashion.

National Geographic greenlits new docu-drama series, Valley of the Boom, tracking Silicon Valley's boom-to-bust story in America's 1990s.

National Geographic (DStv 181 / StarSat 220) has ordered a new 6-episode scripted and documentary hybrid series, Valley of the Boom that will track the 1990's technology boom  - and bust - in the famed American tech-start-up region known as Silicon Valley.

Valley of the Boom has been created by Matthew Carnahan who will also be the director and showrunner, and will produce it together with Arianna Huffington who started The Huffington Post.

"The provocative world of Silicon Valley has long dominated headlines and captured the public's imagination," says Carolyn Bernstein, executive vice president and head of global scripted programming for National Geographic.

Valley of the Boom will premiere globally on National Geographic in 171 countries, including South Africa.

"We cannot wait to tell this timely, wildly unpredictable and captivating story of the early days of the dotcom boom and bust with showrunner Matthew Carnahan and his signature irreverent blend of drama, comedy and pathos."

Valley of the Boom will function like the MARS series, where a dramatised story is being played out, interspliced with real-world commentary from experts.

"We wanted to make something as disruptive and exciting as the people and the tech that came out of the Valley during this period, so this is a wild, hybridized, rule-breaking look at a truly remarkable time and place," says Matthew Carnahan.

"National Geographic has allowed us tremendous creative freedom, and I’m excited about making something truly new and different."

Arianna Huffington says "Silicon Valley and the technology that came out of it dominate our world in so many ways, both physically and culturally".

"But we can't understand the present without understanding how we got here. So I’m thrilled to be partnering with a master storyteller like Matthew Carnahan."