Today's interesting TV stories to read from TV with Thinus - 14 October 2015

■ New show Quantico on Vuzu AMP (DStv 114) gets a full season order.
There will now be 19 episodes in the first season of the new Priyanka Chopra drama and it could even be increased further to 22 to get to a traditional episode number for a season.

■ Dominion on M-Net Edge (DStv 102) cancelled.
Defiance's cancellation is likely next. Viewership dropped by almost half (47%) for the show that was filmed in South Africa by Film Afrika.

■ Beauty and the Beast on M-Net (DStv 101) cancelled.
Upcoming 4th season will be its last. It's never been much of a ratings performer.

■ The ANC has lost faith in Faith Muthambi.
The minister of communications further derailed the mess that was and is supposed to be digital terrestrial television (DTT). The ANC shows "the most public anger expressed at any serving minister since 1994".

■ You can now add ShowMax to your Mweb subscription
The video-on-demand (VOD) service of Naspers is getting bundled with its internet service provider service.

■ Trevor Noah of The Daily Show once again accused of stealing a joke.
The Comedy Central (DStv 122) star apparently again stole an exact replica of a decades-old joke of Dave Chapelle.

■ eNCA (DStv 403) anchor Joanne Joseph interview.
She talks to The Media about her new book, her short temper, human stories and shares advice for female journalists.

■ How the public broadcasting television system in the United Kingdom is under threat like never before.

■ The new 2 minute tralailer for upcoming fantasy series, The Shanarra Chronicles.
No response on a media enquiry from Viacom International Media Networks Africa (VIMN Africa) on whether the new series it will be on MTV on MultiChoice's DStv from 2016 or on an M-Net channel like what happened with Teen Wolf and Vuzu AMP.

■ Why do we say someone is "on" TV, but "in" a movie?
The lexicon explained: TV is this ongoing thing, while a movie is a contained thing.

■ Russia Today (RT) is getting its budget slashed as Russia's economy falters.
The Russian TV news channel seen on MultiChoice's DStv (DStv 407) has gone into propaganda drive again over Russia's bombing of Syria. The channel's budget is being cut by 9% amid the faltering Russian economy.
- RT actually pays TV platforms like DStv to carry the news channel instead of being paid carriage fees as this Foxtel story from earlier in the year in Australia reveals.

As Vuzu turns 5 years old, is M-Net ready to have the TV channel spawn a baby possibly called Vuzu Amp in September?

Vuzu (DStv 116) turns 5 years old today; so is pay-TV broadcaster M-Net ready to spawn a brand-new spin-off TV channel called Vuzu Amp around September?

That is what I've heard.

Vuzu replaced GO five years ago when that youth entertainment channel from M-Net faltered and failed to meet rating and performance targets.

Where Vuzu as a youth-tainment experiment initially had clearly defined boundaries and saw M-Net shift all youth entertainment TV drama shows to Vuzu, that presice and channel content proposition has blurred over the past few years.

Vuzu has become a sort of "all-sorts" TV channel over the past five years - making it impossible to predict exactly what type of TV content and shows would end up on Vuzu.

While V Entertainment remains a standard local production bringing Vuzu viewers youth-tainment-showbiz info on a weekday basis and anchors the line-up, the rest of Vuzu - including erratic and often badly done scheduling - is frequently all over the place.

The content of the Vuzu schedule has blurred over the past few years, resembling an often perplexing melange of disparate content and shows, akin as to if a TV executive mixed chunks of America's VH1, Bravo and E! Entertainment channels together.

The newly somewhat famous, the wannabe famous (both Americans and South Africans) and those past the prime of the fame shelf life, litter the Vuzu schedule.

The result is somewhat of a witches' brew of largely B-grade, often pandering American reality, sometimes have-to-watch, sometimes why-on-Earth? shows.

These Vuzu has spiced up with an equal measure of often questionably low production, local reality fare ranging from Vixens and Nonhle Goes to Hollywood, to Cream Cartel and TV trash supreme, Dineo's Diary.

If there's perhaps an overall theme to Vuzu its that it caters to viewers largely less interested in living their own lives than gawking through a tabloid prism at the lives of others - and the more histrionic the telenality on display, the better.

It's the channel of Mob Wives Chicago, The Bachelor and The Bachelorette; Bachelor Pad, RuPaul's Drag Race, The Real Housewives of Atlanta, Mo Love and Gold Diggerz and inappropriately allocated shows like Sleepy Hollow (while Teen Wolf and Hart of Dixie are on M-Net Series Showcase and The 100 and Beauty & the Beast are on M-Net).

TV shows, TV stars and TV channels age of course in dog years; in reality Vuzu is actually closer to 21 than 5.

It's no wonder then that sources have been telling TV with Thinus that a second Vuzu TV channel is in the works which will be compiled and supplied by M-Net. It will presumablybe for MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV platform where Vuzu is currently residing on the line-up.

I've been told the possible name for the second Vuzu channel is Vuzu Amp (VuzuAmp? VuzuAMP? Vuzu AMP?) and should launch around September or October in South Africa.

I made a media enquiry to M-Net last week and asked whether M-Net can confirm that there's been discussions for another Vuzu channel, whether that is accurate, whether Vuzu Amp is the proposed or talked about name, and whether such a channel would start around September or October, or whether nothing of this is true.

M-Net says "at this stage we can't deny nor confirm that there are plans to launch a new channel or channels. If we do in fact launch a new channel or channels, this will be communicated to media".

TV with Thinus also reached out to MultiChoice; such a platform would presumably carry such a channel, and asked the same, whether there has been or is any discussions around another Vuzu channel, and whether Vuzu Amp is the proposed name.

"We don't comment on plans to launch new channels," says MultiChoice. "Any new channels will be communicated to the media when we are ready to announce".