BBC's preschool kids channel, CBeebies already on DStv in South Africa and distributed by BBC Worldwide, now added to Zuku TV in East Africa.

The BBC's channel for pre-school viewers CBeebies (DStv 306) is being added by the Zuku TV pay-TV platform in East Africa.

BBC Worldwide handles channel distribution for CBeebies internationally and signed a carriage deal with Zuku for CBeebies that's already available on MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV platform in South Africa and on beIN in parts of North Africa.

"The channel is home to some of the most entertaining and educational programmes for young children and given that the African continent has one of the youngest populations globally, we're excited to be able to give new viewers on the Zuku platform access to such popular kids' programmes," says Joel Churcher, BBC Worldwide's general manager for Africa based in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Jay Chudasama, CEO, Zuku TV, says "Our partnership with BBC Worldwide and launch of the CBeebies channel comes at an ideal time when the children are home for the Christmas break."

"Following the success of the channel in South Africa, we’re confident that CBeebies will perform well with our customers across the Zuku platform."

Today's interesting TV stories to read from TV with Thinus - 8 September 2015.

Viacom reveals it will launch Viacom Play Plex.
Viacom Play Plex will launch at the end of the year as a global subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) service in 180 countries where Viacom has channels including South Africa. VIMN Africa runs channels in South Africa and Africa on DStv like Nickelodeon, MTV, MTV Base, BET and Comedy Central.

Netflix says Jeremy Clarkson and his friends were "not worth the money".
Didn't pick up the former Top Gear presenters (the three went to Amazon) because "it wasn't worth it".

Isidingo on SABC3's attack on Christianity.
Endemol's logo is the Eye of Horus and an anagram for 'El Demon' and Isidingo's currenty storyline with Pastor Gabriel and his cult is "a full on attack on Christianity" says this essay.

Zuku TV is cutting down its packages to just 2.
The East African pay-TV operator is reconfiguring its 3 packages to just 2 as MultiChoice's DStv hikes its monthly subscriptions.

Problem with piracy of TV content is "bigger than ever"
Says A+E chief. Says the TV industry needs to keep up its efforts to tackle people illegally watching content.

DStv subscribers misled by MultiChoice's telesales people.
Consumer journalist Wendy Knowler details how telesales agents at On Air exploited subscribers and says complain if this also happened to you.

The lovely Larry King is preparing for the final cancellation.
Wonderful New York Times profile of Larry King obsessed with death.

Why Mr. Robot on M-Net (DStv 101) is not a great show yet.
Although the show is brilliant as a critique of what modern society has become. And without Rami Malek Mr Robot would have been a failure.

Queen Elizabeth II watches Downton Abbey ...
... and she points out the mistakes in the drama which will continue on BBC First on DStv.

Forbes on why Netflix should be afraid of ShowMax.
ShowMax has acquired video-on-demand rights Netflix now won't be able to get when it launches.

MSNBC (StarSat 263) pulls the plug on Al Sharpton's show.
Al Sharpton's daily, weeknight Politics Nation is dumped on weekends as part of the news channel's make-over.

The upcoming UnReal on Lifetime (DStv 131) renewed for a 2nd season.

Alessandra Stanley moving on after 12 years.
The New York Times' influential and often contentious TV critic is done covering TV and will now write about the world of the rich.

Adventure Time, Regular Show and 3 other Cartoon Network (DStv 301) shows renewed.
Adventure Time, Regular Show, Uncle Grandpa, Steven Universe and Clarence will all see further seasons on Cartoon Network.

Shonda Rhimes explains Grey's Anatomy's 1 year time-jump.
The 12th season will start on M-Net (DStv 101) very soon.

Swahili, and how the East African language is fueling the African continent's latest, and brand-new TV arms race.

Sometimes the viewer wins, and currently no single viewership or cultural group on African soil is suddenly more sought-after and more courted that the Swahili speaking people of East Africa - suddenly finding themselves in the midst of a red-hot courtship from not one, not two, but three African pay-TV operators desperately looking for Swahili love - and eyeballs.

A veritable viewership arms race is suddenly fully underway for Swahili viewership across East African countries - stretching and including from Kenya and Tanzania, to Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and even Mozambique as the pan-African Zuku TV, M-Net and MultiChoice and China's StarTimes are going full throttle and are all ramping up Swahili programming and output for dedicated Swahili TV channels.

As Zuku TV, M-Net and MultiChoice and StarTimes are suddenly in a mad dash to all produce and broadcast their own Swahili language content and to create, fine-tune and populate Swahili centred TV brands, the big winner is the viewer.

The combined result of these television industry market forces can be nothing else but the creation of a "Swahiliwood" for Kenya and East Africa.

Already China's StarTimes Media announced - just last month the creation and building of a massive new Africa headquarters and studio complex to produce and churn out countless hours of Swahili specific TV content over the coming years.

StarTimes Media is ready to sink a massive US$78.8 million into this project covering 20 000 square metres.

Kenya's Zuku TV, branching out further and further across East African territories, is in the process of commissioning films specifically in Swahili to broadcast on Zuku Swahili Movies (with English subtitles).

Zuku Swahili Movies when it launched on Zuku TV in March 2013, was the first of its kind in the region, and Africa in general.

Now both StarTimes and M-Net have been muscling in on the action, with a feverish, frantic viewership courtship that include brand realignments, ramping up Swahili local content production and the creation of TV channels specifically going after sought after Swahili viewership.

China's pay-TV operator StarTimes gobbling up African TV real estate, is not sitting idle and has now, dramatically, unveiled its self-packaged and produced Star Swahili TV channel in a bid to lure Swahili TV viewers, as StarTimes revamps its offering for Kenyan StarTimes subscribers as well as in other countries.

With Star Swahili StarTimes promises more local content on the TV channels which it is making available as a basic tier TV channel on all StarTimes bouquets, positioning it to grab and retain as many Swahili viewers as possible.

Star Swahili has gone live immediately on StarTimes last week following a sudden announcement, with a mix of Kiswahili movies, series, drama, comedy, documentaries, celebrity lifestyle and talk shows.

"As a company, we are committed to quality content acquisition and development for this and more channels to come key and progressively enriching the television viewing experience for our subscribers," says StarTimes in a statement.

Then there's M-Net, whose announcement about a dramatic alignment to create a Swahili language brand and Swahili TV channels for East Africa came last week in the exact same week as StarTimes' equally dramatic announcement.

M-Net is suddenly launching Maisha Magic as a new brand in East Africa and is changing the name of AfricaMagic Swahili to Maisha Magic Swahili from 24 September on MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV platform.

"There is definitely great potential for a customised East Africa television brand," said Michael Ndetei, M-Net East Africa regional director last week, announcing the changes.

What he was really saying of course is that M-Net has taken cognisance of the rapid growth of Swahili viewers demanding TV programming in their language, and that there's a lot more money to be made by creating and funneling content to these viewers where they know that they can get it and are able to access it.

Africa's 2014 FIFA World Cup TV rights drama: StarTimes and Zuku TV steal football feed; MultiChoice cuts countries' TV channels from DStv.

There's television drama across sub-Saharan Africa's pay-TV and television biz as StarTimes and Zuku TV allegedly stole the football feed of the 2014 FIFA World Cup without having the rights to it, while MultiChoice Africa is blacking out and pulling free-to-air (FTA) TV channels in several countries from the DStv platform which are showing 2014 FIFA World Cup soccer with rights they legitimately acquired.

Firstly, the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC) in Kenya got an urgent court interdict from high court judge Eric Ogola to block Wananchi Group Limited running the pay-TV service Zuku TV and China's StarTimes (also operating under the same name in South Africa) from using its own exclusively-secured 2014 FIFA World Cup content in Kenya.

Only KBC was authorised by FIFA to broadcast 2014 FIFA World Cup matches in Kenya as a FTA broadcaster, as well as MultiChoice and SuperSport which is showing it on subscription television on DStv and GOtv.

"The rest do not appear to me to have any relationship with the soccer] organisation," said judge Eric Ogola granting the court order.

StarTimes and Wananchi using the FIFA content on its pay-TV platforms, have allegedly breached the licence agreement between KBC and FIFA.

KBC says that the two pay-TV operators broadcasting its signal of the 2014 FIFA World Cup matches it secured, will jeopardise its business since viewers won't feel compelled to tune in to KBC for the exclusivity it paid for.

StarTimes allegedly went as far as hacking into KBC's terrestrial TV feed and pirating that signal to broadcast 2014 FIFA World Cup coverage on its pay-TV platform to not just viewers in Kenya but also in Uganda and Tanzania.

StarTimes and the others could now possibly be sued.

Meanwhile StarTimes blatantly lied to the public and StarTimes subscribers, telling them that StarTimes will be showing 2014 FIFA World Cup matches live from the beginning until the end of the tournament - without actually having any rights.

In full colour print ads StarTimes said "Score with the best deal in town watch live football in crystal clear digital quality on StarTimes".

Meanwhile MultiChoice has yanked Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation's (ZBC) TV channel off DStv for 2014 FIFA World Cup matches in Zimbabwe, as well as others like the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) in Namibia.

These broadcasters legitimately secured the FTA rights to the 2014 FIFA World Cup matches in their respective countries.

While viewers can now see ZBC and NBC as terrestrial channels (only) during the soccer, their signals on DStv are terminated.

On 11 June, right before the 2014 FIFA World Cup started, MultiChoice Africa suddenly sent this letter (right) (click to enlarge) to public broadcasters across Africa, like KBC and NBC in Kenya and Namibia, explaining why FTA channels showing soccer World Cup matches on DStv will be going dark and will be blacked out.

"ZBC wishes to apologise to its viewers receiving the ZBC TV signal on the DStv platform for interruption of transmission since the beginning of the World Cup Brazil 2014," says Clifford Mfiri, ZBC's head of production and TV services, in a statement.

"ZBC has received correspondence from MultiChoice Zimbabwe to the effect that they have been notified by the world football governing body, FIFA, to effect a blanket ban on all free-to-air TV channels broadcasting the games".

"ZBC has acquired the rights to the tournament and is broadcasting all 64 matches and it is accessible through terrestrial TV where viewers need a normal aerial and not a satellite dish to receive the ZBC signal. Any inconvenience is sincerely regretted."

The same is happening in Nigeria for instance with broadcaster AIT where viewers can watch 2014 FIFA World Cup matches on AIT's terrestrial broadcast but see a blacked-out channel on AIT on DStv.

Meanwhile the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) is furious with MultiChoice Africa over the black-out issue and its channel not being available on DStv to viewers in that country, saying that the NBC has had "lots of run-ins in recent times" with MultiChoice.

NBC's director-general Albertus Oachamub on Thursday said that MultiChoice Namibia suddenly cancelled NBC's signal on DStv after NBC announced that it acquired the 64 soccer matches from FIFA to show free-to-air.

"At the eleventh hour, just a couple of hours before we were to go live with our broadcast, they've decided to let us know that this is going to happen [NBC signal cut and going black on DStv]," said Albertus Oachamub in a television interview.

"What makes the matter a bit more complicated is the fact that this message is relayed to us at the eleventh hour and therefore we could not have warned all our viewers that receive us through the MultiChoice bouquet".

"Secondly it makes one wonder what the real reasons were, what the real motives are behind such a last minute announcement".

"We have had lots of run-ins in recent times with MultiChoice. Therefore I'm saying that a last minute announcement like that, makes one wonder if it is really, genuinely for the reasons in the letter that they have sent," said Albertus Oachamub.

"It smacks of some sort of sabotage, a deliberate attempt to make NBC look bad. And definitely this does not sound of good partnership".

"But we will consider all our options, because it is not right that our viewers have to be impacted in this way, especially shortly, just literally two days after we've said we're going to be carrying all the games live," said Albertus Oachamub.

It's not clear why the SABC in South Africa on MultiChoice's DStv platform is not affected in the same way as ZBC, NBC and others across Africa.

The SABC as a public broadcaster is showing the 2014 FIFA World Cup matches as a terrestrial broadcaster, but these matches can also be watched and are not blacked-out on MultiChoice's DStv as well as On Digital Media's (ODM) StarTimes which are pay-TV services in South Africa, as well as on Platco Digital's OpenView HD (OVHD) which is a free-to-air direct-to-home (DTH) satellite TV platform.

Wananchi Group gearing up to expand its East African pay-TV service, Zuku TV, into Malawi, Rwanda and Ethiopia by the end of 2014.

The Wananchi Group, the East African satellite pay-TV operator plans to expand and will launch Zuku TV in Malawi and wants to launch Zuku TV in Ethiopia and Rwanda as well by the end of this year.

The Wananchi Group will invest $10 million to launch Zuku TV in Malawi. The pay-TV operator is already available in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania and growing steadily.

Following its launch in Malawi the operator will be available in 16 million TV households in East Africa.

"We believe through our compelling offering – a wide selection of entertainment channels covering news, sports, movies, documentaries and music – we are inevitably contributing to the country's digital knowledge and economy infrastructure," says Richard Alden, the Wananchi Group CEO.

"Our goal is to ensure the majority, if not all, households in the country have access to our world class digital television content at very affordable subscription charges".

"We believe that there is a rapidly growing market segment that is eager to be part of a digital multichannel television world for the range and choice that it offers to the whole family".

"Our offering has been structured to meet that need – and we see a truly exciting opportunity in this. As an East African company we are committed to maintaining a close focus on this market, and are delighted to be a part of its growth," says Richard Alden.