TV NEWS ROUND-UP. Today's interesting TV stories to read - 14 August 2020.

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


■ The Covid-19 pandemic will make the upcoming TV shows and fims look like nothing we've ever seen before.

■ After Selling Sunset, Netflix is doing another rip-off real estate series of Bravo's Million Dollar Listing with Million Dollar Beach House.

■ At WarnerMedia its streaming service HBO Max is the new golden child. Now WarnerMedia wants to create a new news streaming services like CNN and CNN International (DStv 401) but going directly to consumers instead of through pay-TV.

■ Series finale of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. seen on M-Net City (DStv 115) has an "emotional, happy ending".

■ As background: Apple hates Bloomberg, as in Hates - and has blocked its reporters from for instance attending iPhone launches. Bloomberg keeps scooping with Apple new, for instance this new report that Apple plans to launch "subscription bundles" for things like its Apple TV+ video streaming service.


■ Nick Viall says his "sex narrative" on The Bachelor was difficult to watch.
- While virgin Bachelor Colton Underwood teases his reality TV comeback.
- Host Chris Harrison replaced by JoJo Fletcher.
- Leaving us all just trying to understand what's going on.


■ Meanwhile the Big Brother Naija 2020 housemate Nengi on DStv says she will have sex on the MultiChoice reality show if she wants in front of the cameras, as housemates complains that the condoms are being used up too quickly.

■ A look at the messy, complicated legacy of The Legend of Korra.

■ VICE is a failure in Europe and is starting to withdrawn its TV channels from across Europe after just 4 years (subscription required).

■ New Zealand's TV reporters mask up because of Covid-19 coronavirus - but it's tricky.

■ The reputation of Ellen DeGeneres is in freefall. Can she stop the bleeding?

■ So bad, they're brilliant: Why villains are the true stars of reality TV.

■ TV comedy in crisis: Why class snobbery in 2020 is leaving viewers alienated.

BBC World News adds a VICE News This Week slot to its weekend schedule for global viewers.

The BBC is adding news from VICE Media to its schedule for BBC News, with the programme VICE News This Week that will be broadcast on BBC World News on weekends from today.

Starting on 28 April, VICE News This Week will show a compilation of segments from VICE News Tonight that is broadcast in America on the Viceland channel, and will now be shown worldwide on BBC World News (DStv 400 / StarSat 256 / Cell C 501).

VICE News Tonight started in October 2016 and is produced by Vice Media for America's HBO channel in America. VICE's content and its TV channel are aimed at millennial viewers and specialise in visceral documentaries and programming.

VICE News This Week, a repackaged show of the daily show made for HBO, will be shown on BBC World News on Saturdays at 14:30 and 18:30 and on Sundays at 07:30 and 20:30 (South African time).

"I am delighted that we are partnering with VICE to bring VICE News This Week to our global audiences on BBC World News," says Jim Egan, the CEO of BBC Global News in a statement.

"Complementing our own award-winning international coverage, the program will give our viewers a unique perspective on issues in the United States and around the world."

Josh Tyrangiel, the executive vice president of  VICE News, says "We're chuffed - I think I used that right - to be partnering with BBC Global News to bring our Peabody and Emmy-winning journalism to hundreds of millions of homes around the globe. The BBC is the gold standard and VICE News is truly honoured to be part of its offering."

Today's interesting TV stories to read from TV with Thinus - 29 April 2015.

The SABC's famously matricless COO Hlaudi Motsoeneng is allegedly hiding the financial troubles of the SABC.
According to the Sunday Times the SABC faces a loss of R500 million based on documents to be submitted to the auditor-general in May.

SABC News (DStv 404) then puts James Aguma, the SABC's chief financial officer (CFO) on television to say the Sunday Times got the financial statements "illegally" and that its a "stolen document" (the SABC should perhaps go make a case at the police for theft and get a case number?).
James Aguma on SABC TV says its "unfortunate that we're forced to respond to issues in financial statements" which has not been subjected to audit.


Meanwhile, The SABC is stuck in pathological mode.
The public broadcasting civil society pressure group, SOS Coalition, pens an open letter.

After McDreamy is killed off on Grey's Anatomy another big character dies.
Complete with suicide letter.
Speaking of which, there is now a petition going around to get the fired Patrick Dempsey back on Grey's Anatomy.

MUST READ: Dr. Oz (SABC3) and Dr. Phil's (SABC2) gross TV charade.
Dr. Oz continues to be under fire over his "egregious lack of integrity, but he pales in comparision to the fame-whoring of Dr. Phil as they both TV talk shows are a mélange of exploitation, celebrity parasitism and credential mining.

Meanwhile John Oliver of Last week Tonight on M-Net (DStv 101) calls Dr. Oz "the worst person in scrubs who has ever been on television".


BBC Worldwide is fast changing its channels to BBC First, BBC Earth and BBC Brit.
While we're still waiting for BBC Entertainment, BBC Knowledge and BBC Lifestyle on MultiChoice's DStv to change to these three new channels, BBC Worldwide is rolling out and replacing the existing channels with the rebranded new ones across Europe.
BBC First, BBC Earth and BBC Brit are now the new "global genre channels" fast replacing the old ones.
BBC Worldwide says regionalised BBC Brit and BBC Earth channels are coming to Africa and South Africa.


Comedy Central Africa (DStv 122) grabs game show Deal With It.
Of course no announcement from Viacom International Media Networks Africa (VIMN Africa), but the first two seasons of the American game show has been acquired from distributor Keshet International.

MUST READ: Channel 4 News anchor Krishnan Guru-Murthy explains the fakeness of the movie junket.
After Robert Downey Jr. got up and walked out of a publicity movie junket interview because he didn't like the question, the reporter explains the fakeness of it all behind the scenes - how the real journalist wants "something serious and illuminating, they just want publicity".

Sky is dropping one of its two arts TV channels.
We don't even have any such channels in South Africa on DStv or StarSat or OpenView HD. Sky will now rather create one "super channel" for the arts with a bigger budget and with less repeats.

Nomination period extended for entries for the South African of the Year Awards 2015.
ANN7 (DStv 405) extends the entry period with an additional 4 weeks with 31 May which is now the new deadline for SATY2015.

There is (real) penis in Outlander on M-Net Edge (DStv 102).
The sexual male organ seen in a new episode during sex and arousal was not a "stunt penis" in the episode entitled "Lallybroch".

TV will survive the web and mobile onslaught.
AdWeek says what is replacing television is, television.

Vice on M-Net is becoming its own TV channel.
Vice Media is taking over A+E Networks' 2nd History channel H2 and rebranding it as the Vice channel.

Miles from Tomorrowland on Disney Junior (DStv 309) renewed.
Cute space show picked up for a second season.

Homeland on M-Net is moving to Germany.
After filming in South Africa the 5th season will be done in Berlin.

BREAKING. M-Net grabs Vice as pay-TV broadcaster beefs up its slate of premium current affairs programming.

You're reading it here first. 

M-Net (DStv 101) is substantially beefing up its slate of premium current affairs programming, adding the news magazine series Vice to the pay-TV broadcaster's programming line-up from Sunday 6 July at 22:40.

After dismantling and removing documentaries and its documentary strand for its schedule half a decade ago, M-Net is for the first time increasing its current affairs programming beyond its sole, and longrunning current affairs timeslot and news magazine show Carte Blanche on Sunday nights at 19:00.

After acquiring the broadcasting rights for Vice, the pay-TV broadcaster is now adding it to the Sunday night line-up as well as a well-suited late night complement to the earlier Carte Blanche.

The provocative and successful Vice which was just renewed for a third (longer) and a fourth season in America on HBO has Shane Smith as presenter as well as various other correspondents who cover startling and groundbreaking stories from around the world, told in immersive, documentary style stories.

South African viewers will see Vice cover topics ranging from child suicide bombers in Asia, North Korea, guns in America, China's ghost towns, climate change, desperate bachelors in China, post-war toxic waste in Iraq, underground heroin clinics, fat farms in Mauritania and even "slumscrapers" (the poor living in appalling conditions in high rise Mumbai skyscrapers) - and that's just the first season.

"The success of Vice proves that people are hungry to be engaged in world events when the storytelling is not packaged into sound bites," says the show in a statement following its renewal two weeks ago in America, calling Vice a "smart, honest, in-depth approach to news coverage".

"We promise to report on the under reported, to tell the forgotten stories and to remain committed to uncovering the truth about our planet in peril," said the show.

The addition of Vice to the M-Net schedule follows the pay-TV broadcaster's equally quick and clever grab in April of the new and intelligent weekly late night talker, Last Week with John Oliver, also shown on Sunday nights.