Designing duo, Team R&K - Rekopile Belebesi and Koketso Marole - wins the 5th season of Win a Home on SABC3.

Photo: Günther Schubert

Team R&K with Rekopile Belebesi and Koketso Marole were announced the winners of the 5th season of Win a Home on SABC3, while the jobless viewer Yvette Blignaut in a lucky draw won an apartment and became an instant millionaire in the housing estate where the teams were competing to decorate three different places.

Yvette Blignaut from Edenvale won her own apartment at Balwin Properties' luxurious Paardevlei Lifestyle Estate worth R3 million in the live season finale that was broadcast on SABC3 and produced by Cardova Productions.

She was one of 6 finalists randomly drawn from across South Africa after entering the competition.

Over the past 12 weeks the Win a Home design duos, Rekopile Belebesi and Koketso Marole (Team R&K), Team Contrast Control with Kehumile Mate and Nicholas Smit, and Melissa Oosthuizen and Sinead Turner as Team Perma Peeps, transformed 3 white-box apartments at the complex in Somerset West into designer homes.

Team R&K won the judges choice prize of R100 000 and brought a clean, industrial look to their space while maintaining a warm African feel.

"This duo has grown the most as designers through this series," the judges said. "Their sense of style and glamour shines through in their work. While they were not always the most organised team, they brought a sophisticated culture to their spaces."

"They took risks with beautiful art pieces and unique design elements while still maintaining a practical liveability."

Photo: Günther Schubert

Koketso Marole says "design is a way of life and winning has proven to be just that, a truly humbling experience". Teammate Rekopile Belebesi says "for me design has always been about the balance between aesthetics and functionality. I think we were able to achieve that, and we are so grateful for the recognition."

Team Contrast Control won the viewers choice competition by getting the most viewer votes and won R20 000.

Last Thursday evening TVwithThinus went to attend the fun-filled live finale broadcast and afterparty of Win a Home in Cape Town to sit in as an audience member in the studio using a redress of the set used for Afternoon Express.

Interior design reality competition show, Win a Home, returning to SABC3 for a 5th season, will again be a stand-alone show during prime time, now looking for design pairs.

The interior decorating and design reality competition show, Win a Home, is returning to SABC3 for a 5th season and will once again become a stand-alone show during prime time at 19:30 from 20 September.

The first two seasons of Win a Home were stand-alone shows, after which the 3rd season folded into SABC3's Afternoon Express as a weekday insert.

Win a Home then became a stand-alone Friday afternoon show for its 4th season on SABC3 in 2017.

Win a Home producers are now looking for 3 pairs of aspiring interior designers to participate as contestants in this year's design challenges.

The 5th season of Win a Home produced by Cardova Productions will be based in the Western Cape, with the 3 design duo contestants who will be tasked with decorating 3 identical "white-box" penthouse apartments at the Paardevlei Lifestyle Estate in Somerset West as the compete for the grand prize of R100 000.

People older than 18 can enter if they have less than 5 years' professional experience working as a designer and at least one contestant of the design duo must hold a tertiary degree in design or a related creative field like architecture, fine art,production design, interior decoration, fashion design or art direction.

Contestants must also live in Cape Town or relocate to Cape Town, and be able to transport themselves to the Somserset West development for the duration of the competition and be available during 13 August to 10 December 2018 for the show.

Applications for Win a Home's 5th season will close on Friday 27 July at 12:00 and interested people can email a photo, a 10-page document portfolio of design work you have done, a short bio and contact details to winahome@cardova.tv.

SABC3 at its first 'separate again' content press screening for its latest schedule changes: 'We're not confused, we're experimenting'.

At an upfront media event for some of its new shows, SABC3 didn't make any new announcements that weren't made and are not known already since last month, but did provide more context, telling the press that SABC3 isn't confused but experimenting and trying out different things to see what might work and what won't as it continues to evolve.

Although all three channels are under pressure and dealing with audience erosion in a tough TV market, out of the SABC's three terrestrial analogue channels, SABC3 as the public broadcaster's only commercial TV channel has been and remains under the biggest pressure to improve its performance.

For the larger part of the past half a decade, SABC3 has been dealing with steadily waning audiences, constantly changing programming, a muddled channel identity and struggling to maintain and attract the quality content and upper LSM viewers that it once did in the 2000's.

Although not noted and not asked about, the SABC3 upfront event was highly significant not for the content showcased to the media, but for being held in the first place.

The event, featuring SABC3 channel head Aisha Mohamed back again from her maternity leave, marks the first time that SABC3 again held its own content showcase event for programming after it stopped doing quarterly press screenings almost two years ago.

After it consistently maintained its own regular schedule of press screenings for the media for over a decade and a half, SABC3 in 2014 was lumped with SABC1 and SABC2 in a changed initiative to do a "transversal" upfront over the past two years that didn't play to the strengths of the channel.

Because SABC2 and SABC1 which both used to do their own press screenings, did it less, more irregularly and some years had no content screenings at all, SABC3 suffered by proxy. The overall content showcase for the combined channels took place less regularly and basically only once a year, possibly due to the lack of new content to showcase on the other two channels and less publicity initiative.

It would seem as if SABC3 is now once again unshackled as a TV channel to follow its own best practice regarding press screenings.

At the beginning of last month the SABC overall yet again announced programming changes to its three main TV channels - SABC3 included - undoing and backtracking on several initiatives and scheduling moves implemented a year and a half ago in June 2014.

On Wednesday night at Montecasino in Fourways, Johannesburg, SABC3 reiterated what the SABC said in February, that the move of Afrikaans language shows to SABC3 didn't work with programming strands like Fokus that's now been moved back to SABC2.

SABC3 is at pains to emphasise that the move of Afrikaans back to SABC2 doesn't mean that the lifestyle and entertainment channel is excluding Afrikaans and that it remains a multicultural lifestyle channel including all languages.

As previously announced, the Indian lifestyle magazine show Mela has now moved to SABC3 as a companion show on Sundays for the Top Billing repeat. The new season of the music collaboration show Jam Sandwich will also be changing channels to SABC3.

As it explained in February, SABC3 will change Friday nights to "Comedy Nights" from April with a Friday night comedy strand that will include both local and foreign stand-up comedy offerings. On Saturdays from April, the start of the movie slot is moved from 19:30 to 19:00.

On Saturdays, from April the arts and culture slot is moved earlier to 18:00 and on Sundays SABC3 is introducing a male variety slot at 17:30 for shows like Top Gear and One Day with Bryan Miles.

That is followed by a current affairs block from 19:00 including shows like Interface, Special Assignment and documentaries like Ross Kemp: Extreme Worlds.

The Friday night advertiser-funded show Win a Home will be back for a 3rd "season" but will no longer be a stand-alone show. Instead it will now be folded into the afternoon talk show Afternoon Express since both are produced by the same production company.

BREAKING. Mishka Patel quietly dumped as co-presenter from Private Property, Plascon, Nedbank an LG's Win a Home on SABC3.

Miskha Patel who was "overwhelmed" to be the new co-presenter of the second season of Plascon, Private Property, Nedbank, LG and Mercedes-Benz' advertiser-funded production (AFP) Win a Home has been dumped shortly before the first episode aired this past Friday.

That's after Miskha Patel was already talking about how she was "excited for the journey ahead".

TVSA has the story of the shocking way in which Mishka Patel was unceremoniously cut from Win a Home after Expresso and SABC3 told viewers she is one of the presenters, and after Miskha Patel on social media gushed about the show and her presenting gig.

While Mishka Patel was previously announced, she was suddenly, embarrassingly, no longer a part of Win a Home's second season, with no word from SABC3, Tswelopele Productions producing Win a Home or any of the sponsors on why she was suddenly missing in action.

While imaging with Khanya Siyengo together with Mishka Patel and SABC3 branding appeared beforehand as well as other pictures of them together, and them being interviewed together on Expresso, Khanya Siygeno was suddenly the sole presenter.

Mishka Patel is gone.

"A revision of the show's format, aligned to the reality format, informs the programme's current look and feel," says Win a Home.

"Final testing with the client" apparently led to the axing of Mishka Patel for reasons unknown.

"It sucks and reveals just how hectic and ruthless the TV industry can be," writes TVSA editor Tashi Tagg.

"What's so especially shocking is about this particular situation is how it was so publicly confirmed by so many of those involved with the series. The Win a Home Twitter account retweeted Expresso's tweet about the two of them hosting together," TVSA reports.

"The situation also highlights what a huge problem it is when shows are at the mercy of sponsors in advertiser-funded shows."

The irony for many is how television and programming about beautiful things and about the creation and showcasing of beautiful things externally, often has a mostly hidden, ugly underbelly.

It's not clear why a show like Win a Home and SABC3 would trot out someone like Mishka Patel, have her talk on public television about being a co-presenter, then cut her in conjunction with a client or clients of the advertiser-funded production - and then not explain her sudden absence.

It leaves so many questions about the ugly brand damage inflicted on sponsors, a broadcaster and the business of creating beauty.

Win a Home back on SABC3 for a second season and a 'design' edition with 14 aspiring designers; Khanya Siyengo added as new presenter.

The advertiser-funded reality competition show Win a Home is back on SABC3 from tonight at 19:30 for a second season which will be a "design edition" and presented by Khanya Siyengo.

The real estate competition and design show from Tswelopele Productions returns for a second season in which 14 aspiring interior designers will compete against each other in difficult design challenges that will push them, and their imaginations, to the limit for the chance to win R100 000.

A viewer will once again get the chance to win a multi-million rand home.

With Maps Maponyane who previously presented now doing I Am South African on ANN7 (DStv 405), Khanya Siyengo is stepping as the new presenter who rose to prominence in the recent Presenter Search on 3 TV talent search competition.

SABC3 and Tswelopele Productions have now found success with nifty style and glamour TV that's resonating with viewers, cleverly exploiting the Friday evening timeslot where viewers now flock to and the end of a busy week to watch beautiful television combined with a competition and prize element.

In the second season of Win a Home which will be a "design edition" the 14 hopefuls will battle on a construction site as they pick their interior design themes before rolling up their sleeves to transform three living units into homes with cutting edge design aesthetics - together with mind-boggling deadlines.

The 14 will compete in individual and team challenges and those making it through will get another week on Win a Home.

The 14 contestants in the second season are Lesego Shika (an interior decorator who loves landscaping), Glorinah Mabaso (a freelance interior designer), Lance Surgeson (design-company owner and surfer), fashionista Kefiloe Sebati, Siyanda Mazibuko (carpenter), Jacoline Sema (interior designer) and Wanga Ngwane (a furniture and shoe designer).

The others are Renate Stuurman (the actress with a passion for design), Travis Hyde (an event management consultant), Sifiso Shange (a street art loving Durbanite), eco-conscious Rochelle le Roux, Bridgette Ramakhapele (digital fabric printing owner), Zimkhita Sidumo (an accountant turned interior decorator), and Larochelle van Rensburg (interior decorating student).

Every episode of Win a Home will visit a different top South African designer - ranging from product designers responsible for products like lamps to interior decorators - who will give insight into the creative process and join the judges, Anne Roselt and Simon Bray in deciding who stays and who goes.

Josh Gloak the winner of the first season of SABC3's Win a Home competition and Steyn City apartment; Donald Nxumalo wins as best designer.

Josh Gloak (23) is the winner of Win a Home on SABC3 after picking the right safe to open in the reality competition show from Tswelopele Productions which was spin-out into its own TV show this year following the successful insert it was on Top Billing.

Josh Gloak from Morningside chose the charcoal safe after 12 weeks and won the keys to the luxury apartment at Steyn City.

"When I opened the safe, it took me a few seconds to realise what I'd actually won and what was actually in the safe."

"But when I did, it was an unreal feeling, absolutely incredible. My first home. I think that's something special."

In an interesting twist Win a Home combined an interesting reality TV aspect into the show, adding an interior design competition.

Four aspiring designers – Jason Sandows, Jonathan Avnon, Donald Nxumalo and Liza Scholtz - were paired with four established designers – Stephen Falcke, Ditau Interiors' Nthabi Taukobong, Head Interiors' Abilene Brodie, and Design Collective's Amanda Elliott - who acted act as mentors.

Each week, the aspiring designers were given a room décor challenge on a budget determined by their mentor.

At the end of each four-day décor challenge Donald Nxumalo (26) was announced as the winner, getting the opportunity to become one of Steyn City's "preferred" interior designers, as well as receiving a three-month internship with Kim Hutton of Kim H Interiors, who designed the prize apartment.

"We are very proud of this first series of Win a Home and very thankful to our sponsors for their enormous contributions and for Steyn City for hosting us, as well as to SABC3 for giving us the platform to broadcast," says Patience Stevens, executive producer.

"A huge congratulations to Josh. I'm sure he will enjoy the beautiful apartment at Steyn City and all that the lifestyle estate has to offer."