SABC boss Hlaudi Motsoeneng orders SABC2 Venda soap Muvhango to move from Johannesburg to Thohoyandou in Limpopo.

The SABC's controversial boss Hlaudi Motsoeneng has ordered the SABC's Venda soap Muvhango, filmed on sets in Johannesburg, to move its production to Thohoyandou in Limpopo.

There's no film and TV studios in Thohoyandou equipped to produce the two and a half hours per week Venda soap, nor the underlying film industry services needed to support a TV production like this, for instance equipment rental.

The Muvhango move will mean an increase in production cost, meaning that the SABC will have to pay more for the show to be made outside of Johannesburg.

It's not clear when the Venda soap, produced by Word of Mouth Productions will have to start doing episodes away from Johannesburg. The big move from Auckland Park will affect the cast and crew as well as their extended families who are living in Gauteng.

Muvhango is the most watched programme and most watched soap on SABC2 with 5.8 million viewers per episode.

The SABC's existing contract with Word of Mouth's ends in August. The SABC is expected to renewed the contract to produce Muvhango for another three years.

Although Word of Mouth's contract hasn't been renewed yet, Hlaudi Motsoeneng in late May ordered Muvhango boss Duma Ndlovu to give principal cast members three year contracts as well when the show's contract officially gets extended.

Muvhango having to move to the bha-Venda area of the Limpopo province comes as Hlaudi Motsoeneng visited the VhaVenda king Toni Mphephu Ramabulana at the royal palace last month, with the king who there publicly stated that he supports the SABC's censorship decision of the public broadcaster's SABC TV news when it comes to public protest visuals.

PhalaPhala FM is also moving to the town of Thohoyandou and will broadcast from there from 1 September where there's a bigger building that was previously used by Radio Thohoyandou. The SABC said it will be upgrading the building and radio studios.

"We have buildings there. We need to build studios so that when production house come and you produce content, you don't go to Auckland Park, you are able to shoot here in Thohoyandou," said Hlaudi Motsoeneng.

He said the people who will revamp the Thohoyandou building must come from Thohoyandou.

Hlaudi Motsoeneng's move of Muvhango out of Johannesburg is part of his macro edict of 90% local content on the SABC's radio stations and TV channels under which new local SABC TV content will have to be produced in various different provinces by new and emerging TV producers.

On Monday Hlaudi Motsoeneng suddenly announced that the episode order of Uzalo on SABC1, filmed in Durban by Stained Glass Pictures, will almost double, increasing it from three days to five days per week.

It follows revelations that Hlaudi Motsoeneng single-handedly overruled and reversed a decision by a 6-person SABC executive panel who cancelled Uzalo after its first season, ordering the prime time soap to continue.

About the show's R158 million contract price tag that costs R14 000 per minute to produce, Uzalo co-producer and co-owner Gugu Zuma-Ncube, daughter of president Jacob Zuma, said "it is more expensive to produce television in Durban than it is to produce television in Johannesburg".

BREAKING. Most bizarre SABC press conference ever as bare-breasted Venda women perform ritual in Hlaudi 'woman as gift' scandal.

The most bizarre press conference at the SABC's Auckland Park headquarters took place today when bare-breasted women and some fully clothed men performed a Venda ritual on the floor in front of the tables - to summon passed-on elders - in one of the strangest (and ongoing) scandals involving the South African public broadcaster since the inception of the broadcaster.

Meanwhile journalists were suddenly forced to take off their shoes and to kneel and lower themselves - awkward since no pre press conference protocol rules were circulated beforehand helping the press to know what to expect, prepare for, and what journalist or reporter to send in case of special circumstances.

Flabbergasted journalists and reporters had no real choice but to oblige the group - a specific lobby group called Mudzi Wa Vhurereli ha Vhavenda, comprising Venda traditional healers.

Adding to the surreal circumstances was the lack of English translators for speakers who only spoke in Venda.

The Venda delegation said that they are Venda and will be speaking Venda since English isn't better than their language and that nobody could really speak English well in the group.

The problem was that the press was unprepared and not informed ahead of time, and had to interrupt and ask for any possible translation into English.

However nobody was available nor willing. As the Venda group went ahead speaking in Venda, Dr. Gladys Netshengwe, a chief's wife could speak some English and agreed to translate.

Before the start of the press conference this afternoon in Johannesburg, the Venda delegation surprised with an unannounced ritual summoning elders. The bizarre press conference was also marked/marred by loud ululating by bare-breasted women every time before any Venda member spoke.

Later journalists and reporters who wanted answers had to lower themselves first to show respect in order to elicit a possible response or an answer.

Journalists from The Sowetan newspaper and wire service Sapa were ordered and basically forced to come to the front to collect a document as the "response" from the Venda people - but once the journalists who went forward under duress did it, they were ordered to get on their knees before handed the papers.

Next to them bare-chested Venda women lay on the floor.

The swirling controversy stems from SABC executives who visited Thohoyandou in Limpopo in an official public meet-and-greet to talk about the SABC and the public broadcaster's role just over a week ago.

The SABC's famously matricless acting chief operating officer (COO) Hlaudi Motsoeneng was involved in a parading of women, reportedly including the "gifting" of one, as well as being given a cow and a calf.

The Commission for Gender Equality is investigating complaints.

After more than a week during which the SABC made no official statement, the Venda people suddenly decided to hastily convene a press conference and at the SABC - and weirdly for Sunday.

During the press conference Hlaudi Motsoeneng was often incorrectly referred to and called "Motsoaledi".

The Venda king Khosikhulu Mphephu Ramabulana is furious and is demanding answers from the SABC about the event and from those who organised it in a press statement which was issued this weekend from the royal Venda headquarters.

At the press conference on Sunday afternoon, the Venda delegation said that the cow and calf are a gift to the SABC, not to Hlaudi Motsoeneng.

The 23 year old Venda woman, Vanessa Mutswari, is engaged to another man and says she was not given to anybody.

"It disgusts me [to read/see/hear] we are Venda, we are giving a wom- a wife to SABC," said dr. Gladys Netshengwe, a chief's wife at the press conference. No. It's not what we did".

BREAKING. Venda king furious over bare-breasted woman offered as wife to SABC's Hlaudi Motsoeneng; demands answers from SABC.

The king of the Venda people in South Africa, Khosikhulu Mphephu Ramabulana is furious over the event just over a week ago where the SABC's famously matricless acting chief operating officer (COO) Hlaudi Motsoeneng was presented with a cow, a calf, and a bare-breasted woman "given" to him as a wife.

SABC executives visited Thohoyandou in Limpopo in an official public meet-and-greet to talk about the SABC and the public broadcaster's role, but the organisers and Hlaudi Motsoeneng were incapable of managing the optics properly and professionally - allowing a parading of women, reportedly including the "gifting" of one, as well as a cow and a calf.

Several South African women rights' organisations remained silent, including government ministries, and the SABC has not issued an official press statement immediately after the controversy started swirling, or in the more than a week since.

The South African public broadcaster is once again embroiled in a scandalous story about itself, which ran away with it leaving the SABC looking bad, and in which the corporation made no attempt to do damage control, employ crisis communication of any kind, or to make a pro-active, forthright declaration or statement quickly.

In fact, the SABC visited the Venda community to talk about local content and more content in Venda but instead of affirming and reaffirming and channeling an on-point message which would have been about the corporation, the SABC issued no press release or statement that it's visiting the Venda community and what it is doing for that community - and allowed the ever-constant drama surrounding the famously matricless Hlaudi Motsoeneng to once again derail an event.

In a statement, strangely also made very belatedly, the Venda king now says that he "together with all traditional leaders and Venda people completely distance ourselves from the event and any other activity related thereto".

The statement comes just before a press conference on Sunday afternoon from Venda people at the SABC's Auckland Park headquarters to basically trash the original story published by The Sowetan newspaper.

King Khosikhulu Mphephu Ramabulana says in the statement he has summoned everybody who organised and participated in the event to the Venda people's royal headquarters.

He says he will also be talking directly "with the SABC on their role in the event".

SABC News which notoriously, constantly skews news coverage regarding its own executives and the corporation's management troubles will very likely not report the unhappiness of the Venda king and people with the SABC and Hlaudi Motsoeneng's involvement in the event, nor ask an SABC executive why the broadcaster allowed the gifting event to happen, or why the SABC didn't react swiftly and decisively.

An SABC News report, if there is any, will very likely take the angle of how Venda women are angry at the media in general for giving an "inaccurate" portrayal of them in the media in the story - nothing about the SABC's involvement in the mess.