eMedia Investment's Openview free-to-air satellite TV service finally launches its first PVR capability with an Open PVR USB.

e.tv's satellite TV service has launched its first personal video recorder (PVR) decoder functionality, the Open PVR, making it possible for users in South Africa and neighbouring countries to now also record and store free-to-air content shown on e.tv and the SABC's channels to watch later.

The Open PVR, activated through inserting an Openview PVR USB into the latest NA9200 Openview decoder model, allows viewers to record and store content, as well as pausing a live linear TV channel for up to 15 minutes, and then unpause and continue.

Viewers can also record one TV channel while watching another TV channel on Openview's channels offering.

The Openview PVR USB is sold in two sizes - 32 GB that can record up to 8 hours of high definition (HD) content, and a 64GB USB that can record up to 18 hours of HD content.

Openview - formerly known as OpenView HD (OVHD) that eMedia Investments originally launched in October 2013 under its Platco Digital hub - has quietly been rebranded by eMedia Holdings with a new red logo doing away with the pink and purple, and dropping the "HD" moniker.

Vasili Vass, eMedia Investment's group head of corporate affairs, and e.tv publicist Michael Pocock didn't respond to media enquiries about Openview.

Patrick Conroy who took over from Maxwell Nonge in March 2016 as Openview's managing director has since left, with e.tv not responding when asked who took over this year in running its Openview platform business.

eMedia that is now pushing the new PVR functionality of the Openview set-top box (STB) to market is following StarSat operated by China's StarTimes Media SA and On Digital Media (ODM), that finally launched its first PVR capable decoder in June 2017 in South Africa.


Openview: Small audience but big plans
Openview remains a loss-making operation with about 35 000 new STB activations monthly.

It attracts only a meagre 3.5% of the total television audience in South Africa but although it incurred an operating loss of R255 million for the financial year that ended March 2018, eMedia Holdings said it remains focused on funneling money into the service to drive it to success.

Openview reached 1.1 million activated decoders by the end of March 2018. It means that eMedia Holdings still has to almost double the Openview audience (6%) to reach its projected break-even point. At the current Openview growth rate, that will take another 4 years.

Interestingly, while Openview is only meant for South Africa, activated STBs taken outside of the country's borders, are also being sold, although illegally, in neighbouring Southern African countries, giving viewers in places like Zimbabwe, Swaziland and elsewhere access to e.tv, SABC1, SABC2 and SABC3 that they find to be much better content that their own censorship-heavy state broadcaster offerings.

Within months eMedia Investments plans to launch OpenNews as an in-house sister channel on Openview.

OpenNews will also serve as a rival TV news channel to its existing eNCA (DStv 403) news channel that eMedia supplies to MultiChoice's DStv. The plan is also to do an additional daily Afrikaans TV news bulletin on Openview's eExtra channel, including new local Afrikaans TV shows.

eMedia's plan with this is not just to bolster the existing Openview content proposition and to attract bigger uptake, but also to create a content fallback fail-safe in the possible eventuality that the MultiChoice and M-Net contracts for eNCA, and eNuus supplied to kykNET (DStv 144), are not renewed should channel carriage renegotiations at some point in the future fail and eNCA get dropped.

The rebranded eNCA dumps Africa from the TV news channel's new look without any explanation as to why - and a lot of unanswered questions.

The rebranding of eNCA (DStv 403) introduced this week Monday on eMedia Investments' TV news channel has seen eNCA dump Africa - literally - as in doing away with the 11-point hendecagon symbol representing the African continent.

In May longtime eNCA insiders told TVwithThinus that the outline of the African continent done in blue from the second rebrand - and that was formed out of the tiles of the first eNCA rebrand when the logo changed from the eNews Channel look - will be a gonner when eNCA rebrands in July.

This has now been confirmed with viewers that can see that Africa as far as eNCA's new on-air look is concerned, is indeed gone.

eNCA hasn't explained the news channel's new logo and hasn't explained why the Africa silhouette has been deleted.

eNCA and e.tv didn't respond to any media enquiries made last week about eNCA's on-air rebranding.

According to eNCA insiders who spoke out in May, a top-level eMedia Holdings executive allegedly said in a meeting that he wants the Africa logo removed from the eNCA logo since Africa is synonymous with famine and corruption.

TVwithThinus asked Vasili Vass, eMedia Investments group head of corporate affairs, as well as Michael Pocock, e.tv publicist about this in a written media enquiry and what the company's comment is about this but neither responded.

According to an insider eNCA - formerly an abbreviation of "eNews Channel Africa" - allegedly also "no longer stands for anything. It's now just letters". eNCA and e.tv were asked about this, what eNCA stands for now - or maybe still - but chose to also not to comment and respond.

eMedia Investment's removal of Africa from the eNCA logo fits in with eNCA's dramatic downsizing of first-hand Africa news coverage over the past 3 years, including the shuttering of its Africa bureaux, firing of correspondents, cancelling its news and current affairs shows specifically covering Africa, and largely making use of international wire news service content when there's news in Africa further removed from its Hyde Park, Johannesburg studios in South Africa.

A lot of unanswered questions
A lot of questions about eNCA's latest rebrand - the news channel's third in its 10 year history - remain unanswered.

eNCA didn't explain why the afternoon strand News Day was canned, or why News Night was moved an hour earlier to now start at 17:00, or why Moneyline was dumped. 

The eNCA on-air rebrand comes amidst a wave of defections from eNCA the last few months with staffers who said that "morale is at an all time low". No word on what eNCA makes of that.

What exactly is eNCA's view and relationship towards Africa regarding news and covering it with breaking news stories when it happens as well as investigative first-person, on-the-ground stories in the way CNN International (DStv 401) and Sky News (DStv 402) do? Why the lack of investment in this area? Because eNCA doesn't want to, or can't afford it?

How will eNCA on MultiChoice's DStv be different than eMedia Investment's new sister TV news channel, OpenNews, that it will be launching on Openview within months and what are the differentials between the two (since eNCA rebrand now presumably took in account that it can't "rebrand" yet again in a few months come November)?

How does eNCA and eMedia Investment execs feel about its ongoing business relationship with MultiChoice that carries eNCA on DStv and what is the future, and long-term future outlook of the channel and this relationship? There are some very clear signs of relationship strain bordering on dislike between the two.

Will eNCA's dalliance with political parties and the way eNCA is courting politicians continue into 2019 - a general election year? How will eNCA try to maintain a semblance of impartiality and objectivity when political leaders are put in eNCA's anchor chair to apparently create social media viral moments instead of bringing the audience news - and will there be more similar "must-see TV" stunts during South Africa's election year?

Finally there's the litany of complaints regarding the new on-air look that eNCA seems to ignore. Was this tested beforehand? Did someone sit down and look how everything would look on camera beforehand? It feels as if eNCA decided to roll it out to viewers as a live on-air test without actually sorting the myriad of issues viewers are complaining about, first.

e.tv and the SABC silent over the drop-off danger and the threat of disappearing audiences in South Africa's digital terrestrial TV switch-over.

South Africa's two biggest free-to-air broadcasters - e.tv and the SABC - are both silent over the looming danger, and the horrific implications for their respective audience ratings, when millions of viewers nationwide could be disappearing in the country's switch-over to digital terrestrial television (DTT) as the government warns that it is nearing the point where it will start shutting down analogue signals for entire provinces.

With South Africa's stalled decade-long switch from analogue to digital TV broadcasting - a process known as digital migration - moving forward with lurching imprecision, the department of communications last week announced that it plans to switch off all analogue TV signals to the entire Free State province.

Also of concern is that the minister of communications's new Broadcasting Digital Migration Advisory Council that have representatives from broadcasters and the TV industry, doesn't include any members who are directly representing the South African viewing public or civic organisations that are representing public broadcasting interests.

Nomvula Mokonyane, the minister of communications, last week warned that in the "the countdown to the Free State Province switch-off by December 2018" that people in this province need to get their set-top box (STB) they need to continue watching the SABC and e.tv's free TV channels.

The South African government, after missing the international June 2015 deadline to complete the process, is now under pressure to try and make its next self-imposed deadline of June 2019 to switch off all analogue TV signals nationally.

Only people receiving social grants and those earning less than R3 200 per month qualify for a free, government subsidised STB.

Struggling South African families in the so-called "middle income group" - those earning more than R3 200 but less than R6 500 - as well as those earning more, are getting no government support and will have to buy a STB costing around R700 or a new integrated digital TV set.

Many of these TV households don't know that they qualify for a free STB, don't know that they need to buy one or about the DTT process, or can't afford to suddenly buy a STB even if they earn more than R3 200.

TV households who don't switch will be cut off and lose the existing free SABC, e.tv and community TV channels they've been watching when analogue signals get cut.

The looming problem comes in when the department of communications starts to cut off whole provinces, like its plan for the Free State come December 2018, when thousands of TV households either haven't switched to using a government-subsidised STB, or haven't bought one because they don't know about it or can't afford it.


How many will disappear from the TV ratings universe?
That will not just lead to analogue TV households losing public access to existing free-to-air TV channels, but e.tv and the SABC as broadcasters losing swathes of viewers who will completely drop out of existence from the overall so-called "TV universe" - the sampling of South African households with a TV set making up the matrix used for compiling the country's national TV ratings.

The South African government is supposed to keep both analogue and its parallel DTT signals going - a process known as "dual illumination" - until the bulk of existing analogue TV households have migrated and it's safe to switch analogue off.

With its announced December 2018 shut-down deadline for the Free State, it appears that the department of communications will switch off analogue signals even if the bulk of Free State province TV households have not switched to DTT in just 4 months' time.

It's not clear how TV ratings services and the Broadcasting Research Council of South Africa (BRCSA) - overseeing radio and television audience measurement research and TV ratings for broadcasters, as well as the advertising and marketing industry - are going to handle the issue of the potential drop-off and disappearance of millions of viewers watching public TV channels when their access to analogue signals are taken away.

A week ago Vasili Vass, eMedia Investments group head of corporate affairs, was asked for comment as to whether it's a concern for e.tv, given that a sizeable chunk of TV audience watching e.tv are making use of analogue TV signals and might simply disappear if they have not switched to DTT.

e.tv was also asked for the broadcaster's view on how the switch from analogue to DTT might impact e.tv in terms of possible loss of its available audience because of the swith, but Vasili Vass didn't respond to the written media enquiry.

Last week the SABC was asked the same questions regarding the viewing audience of the public broadcaster watching SABC channels through its analogue signals, and the threat of audiences vanishing when analogue is switched off before viewers have switched over.

SABC spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago likewise didn't respond to the written media enquiry.


'A real problem' William Bird, director at Media Monitoring Africa (MMA), told TVwithThinus that it's a problem that the public interest isn't represented on the minister of communications' Digital Broadcasting Advisory Council.

"This is indeed a real problem - it means that the public interest is likely to be marginalised in favour of what works for big industry. This is a real problem. We are working on it," he said.

Speaking about DTT and STBs William Bird said "the real question is whether DTT is already dead in the water".

"MMA's view is that its time has passed and we need to be looking to other methods, specifically satellite and broadband to ensure connection for all and to ensure that all people have access to free-to-air services."

"Satellite is already in more than 50% of all homes in South Africa. The costs for reaching all people with DTT are massively prohibitive and will also involve upgrading equipment that is already out of date as well as doing more work on the actual spectrum."

"We see form international experience that DTT will be gone from many countries in the not too distant future."

Meanwhile Marian Shinn, the Democratic Alliance (DA) political party's member of parliament looking after telecommunications, says the Broadcasting Digital Migration Advisory Council "seems to be aimed only at delivering the short-term goal of analogue broadcasting switch-off to the Free State by December 2018, as well as chalking up a pre-election 'achievement for the 2019 general election".

According to Marian Shinn, the minister of communications Nomvula Mokonyane, "ducked out of a joint meeting of the portfolio committees on communications and telecommunications and postal services scheduled for 5 June to discuss the status of the broadcasting digital migration programme".

"The committees' last had a progress report from the former minister of communications, Faith Muthambi, in September 2016".

"The DA once again repeats the callfor a 2-day public hearing in parliament to comprehensively review the entire broadcasting digital migration programme," she said.

"The hearings should look at the full cost of implementing the programme and how this will be funded, determine whether the corrupted government-sponsored STB-programme should be scrapped in favour of integrated digital TV sets [and] how the programme will be funded".

"We also need to know whether to upgrade signal distributor Sentech's terrestrialdigital transmission infrastructure, which has been largely unused since it was erected to meet the International Telecommunications Union's analogue switch-off deadline of 17 June 2015, or switch the entire digital broadcasting programme to satellite transmission."

"The switch-off of the analogue broadcasting signal is extremely urgent to free up desperately needed spectrum for mobile broadband use, but it would be foolish and probably wasteful to focus only on ways to now fast-track an outdated, corrupted, and inadequately-funded process," Mariann Shinn said.

Sex den actor from e.tv's Scandal! will appear in court today after arrest following police's brothel raid on Thursday.

The prominent young e.tv actor from TV soap Scandal! arrested in a sex den raid on Thursday by police in the East Rand will appear in court today.

The 21-year old actor who appears in e.tv’s most watched TV show produced by Ochre Moving Pictures luring 4.5 milion viewers on weeknights, was arrested on Thursday during the brothel raid in Springs after a 25-year old woman managed to escape the sex den in Springs, east of Johannesburg, and fled to the police.

The woman who told police that she is fearing for her life, has since been taken to a place of safety.

Seventeen people – 11 women and 6 men ranging in age between 19 and 43 – were arrested and charged with sexual exploitation and human trafficking, with TVwithThinus that understands that police found a large number of condoms on the premises.

The group including the actor who can't yet be named, will appear in the Springs Magistrate’s Court later today, charged under the Sexual Offences Act.

Police recently did another brothel bust in the same area where five girls were freed after they were held as teenage sex slaves in what was disguised as a barber shop.

Gauteng police spokesperson Captain Kay Makhubele told me on Friday morning that the escaped woman ran from the brothel to the police. “She pointed out the brothel and that’s why the police went and raided the brothel”.

According to Kay Makhubele the preliminary police investigation identified the one person arrested as a TV actor in e.tv’s Scandal!.

e.tv in response to a media enquiry told me on Thursday evening that “e.tv is aware of the stories and speculation surrounding the arrest of an actor, but has received no further details at this stage".

"The channel will respectfully allow due process to take place,” said Vasili Vass, e.tv’s head of corporate affairs.