BREAKING. DStv ending two stand-alone TV channels: Bloomberg Television folded into Business Day TV with blocks, mk to live on online.

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MultiChoice is ending two TV channels on its bouquet, with the business channel Bloomberg Television (DStv 411) and the mk (DStv 324) music channel which are both being discontinued in their current form as separate TV channels on the DStv pay-TV platform in South Africa.

South Africans will still be able to see both Bloomberg Television content and mk content but not as stand-alone TV channels on DStv, with Bloomberg Television which will continue on television in the form of programming blocks on another business TV channel run by BDFM, and mk which will be streamed online as it relocates to primarily inhabit a cyber presence.

Bloomberg Television programming blocks of the most important market day coverage are being added on Summit TV exactly as TV with Thinus reported back in March, together with Summit TV changing its channel name to Business Day TV on channel 412 from today.

mk meanwhile will continue as an online channel at www.mktv.co.za where it will exist as a cyber platform streaming music videos and songs. mk will also live on as an audio channel on channel 886 on the DStv audio bouquet.

Various separate sources connected to Summit TV as well as sources connected to mk told TV with Thinus back in March about the changes and said the same thing: that Bloomberg Television and mk will no longer be separate TV channels on DStv from later in the year.

MultiChoice has apparently started a process of "reallocating capacity" on the DStv platform. There was no official confirmation though at the time from MultiChoice, which - when asked about mk ending as a separate stand-alone TV channel and Bloomberg Television ending as a stand-alone TV channel - said at the time that there is no news to share in this regard and that DStv doesn't share information on developments until the pay-TV operator is ready to make the necessary announcements.

Now the news about Bloomberg Television and mk are official and here is what is happening:

Besides South Africa, Bloomberg Television will remain available throughout the rest of Africa for 24 hours a day as the Bloomberg Television channel.

Bloomberg Television will continue until the end of June in South Africa on channel 411. Bloomberg Television content will continue to be available to viewers on Business Day Television from Wednesday 19 June to DStv Premium, DStv Compact and DStv Family subscribers for 10 hours per day.

Bloomberg Television content will be shown in programming blocks from 07:00 to 12:00, 16:00 to 18:00 and 23:00 to 03:00 (South African times) on Business Day TV.

ALSO READ: Business Day TV replaces Summit TV on MultiChoice's DStv; Bloomberg Television programming blocks added to the schedule.

Business decision makers and financiers who watch Bloomberg Television will still be able to access the European markets opening and closing, the United States market opening and closing, and other feature programming such as Bloomberg West and Charlie Rose's talk show within these programming blocks.

Clients of Bloomberg Professional service can also watch Bloomberg Television on their terminals, the channel is streamed online at bloomberg.com as well as clips which can also be watched there, and the channel can also be viewed free on the app for Apple iPad (Bloomberg TV+).

mk meanwhile will be discontinued as a TV channel on DStv from the end of July.

mk started in mid-2005 with big fanfare as mk89 as a music video channel aiming to serve the youth music market and supplied to DStv by the pay-TV broadcaster M-Net. The channel later dropped the "89" from its moniker after a DStv channel number shuffle.

After 8 years mk which served as a driver of the local production of especially Afrikaans rock music videos to be produced, will now be transformed into South Africa's first online music video streaming channel.

"The mk audience is an online generation and in due course these free-spirited, on-the-go world citizens will be able to enjoy mk wherever and whenever they have internet access," says M-Net.

M-Net says "this move will open up countless exciting possibilities for both the brand and the music featured on mk".

"It's mindblowing to think that internet users across the globe would be able to enjoy mk's content and that you only need a smart phone, tablet or PC with an internet connection to be exposed to the great South African bands and musos that rock mk."

Music TV channel MK: ''The people working there are ever so creative. I'm very proud of MK,'' says channel boss.

''It's a looker,'' says Karen Meiring, head of Afrikaans TV channels at M-Net about MK (DStv 324), the Afrikaans music TV channel that's making big strides in viewership growth.

''It's cool and the people working there are ever so creative,'' she says in a press release. ''I'm very proud of MK. The channel talks to a very specific market and we know that it's the channel of choice at universities. Many companies are very keen to reach this young and dynamic market, but simply do not know how to do it successfully. For them MK is the ideal vehicle,'' she says.

REVIEW. 2011 MK Awards an epic fail in kiefness; badly produced show that overran was riddled with technical mistakes, problems.

M-Net, kykNET and music channel mk needs to seriously rethink what it's purpose is with the MK Awards since a proud showcase it is definitely not and with the deplorably shoddy production values on display at the 2011 MK Awards I attended last night, it's either being short changed by a lack of money, attention and focus by channel execs or not given proper production support by the Magic Factory that produced this low budget mess. Or all of the above.

The 2011 MK Awards broadcast live on mk (DStv 324) on Saturday night was not the Parow kus of Kiefness. The badly-run, badly-produced, award show that ran longer by more than half an hour was riddled with mistakes, errors, empty seats, incoherent production, barely there musicians to accept awards and technical sound and light problems which is more on par with the kind of award shows that you'd actually expect from a SABC produced award show like the Saftas or the Metro's. In a big sense of irony the 2011 MK Awards contained sketches during ad breaks denoting sardonic ''epic fail'' situational comedy moments that actually, unintentionally, could refer to what this award show itself was: an epic fail.

How bad is it when you win an award like Die Tuindwergies did, and you can't get to the stage because the security don't know who you are and weren't briefed to let you through and grab you, and you try to break free (viewer's didn't see him flip the moronic security guard the bird) to just get to the stage?
How bad is it when a model (like for instance the one with the ''antler branches'' that was also the brand image of this year's awards) bringing the trophy can't get back through the door opening (not shown on TV) which shows there clearly haven't been a dress rehearsal with their avant garde creations on?
Is it normal for presenters having to struggle to find the winners' names since they haven't been told its on the trophies themselves? And can you blame the empty seats and the audience leaving when they realized that basically none of the winners are there in person to accept their awards (which is why people showed up in the first place - to see the winners in person) but are reduced to watching pre-taped acceptance speeches?

The lighting and sound was bad but since I sat in the audience I have no idea whether like Idols, its better when watched from home. The 2011 MK Awards that was broadcast live was supposed to end at 21:30 but went over to after 22:00. Where is the director of this mess and wasn't this show scripted, dry-runned, plotted and timed before hand? Why did presenters struggle to read the autocue and several blatantly reading it so badly that it was clear that they didn't get their script before and was reading it for the very first time during the live show? Magazine shows Jip from kykNET (DStv 111) and Studio 1 from mk attended and will probably gush with sinergistic praise about this award show that deserves more than the shoddy production that marred it.

Getting 550 000 votes in total shows that there definitely is an audience for something like the MK Awards, but it doesn't seem as if M-Net/kykNET/mk wanted to actually put a decent amount of money, or attention into this show to at least produced a passing grade show. Producing a low-rent award show like this but aimed at actually trying to show how good local Afrikaans rock video production is, is just not Die Antwoord. Having a black carpet is a great idea though and a unique selling value proposition for this award show. Corne and Twakkie as hosts of the 2011 MK Awards were funny and did a remarkably good job of entertaining the audience both during the show and during ad breaks but even they couldn't hold up the limping production (and can't be expected to). Rock band Die Heuwels Fantasties - clearly a big draw in terms of the live audience who showed up and were probably their fans - performed admirably in the live performance at the 2011 MK Awards that had the least mistakes. If the passed away former MK presenter Herman Pretorius were invoked in barely everything, why did the producers not have a pre-taped tribute insert?

You can be low-cost without coming across as low-budget and that's how the 2011 MK Awards looked: Zef but sadly not cool zef. Somewhere Jack Parow cannot be thinking that this mess was quite piele.

With no broadcasting date yet, the mk Awards 2011 promises a zeffer than zef line-up of artists at this year's music award ceremony.

There will be 13 categories and 61 nominations in the mk Awards 2011 that viewers will be able to watch on the Afrikaans music channel mk (DStv 324) . . .soon.

A specific broadcast date for the mk Awards 2011 is still pending but the music awards show is taking place on 26 February at the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC). Artists already confirmed for this growing annual music awards show that will be televised later, include Foto na Dans, Zebra and Giraffe, Die Heuwels Fantasties ft. Thieve, Jack Parrow ft. JR, Prime Circle and well as the Best Live Act which will be revealed during the award ceremony. The mk Awards 2011 hosts are the zeffer than zef Corne and Twakkie.

Tickets for this rocking awards show are available at Ticketbreak and cost R50 standing and R100 seated with tickets also giving access to the afterparty.

BREAKING. mk Awards 2010.

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The annual mk Awards 2010 is taking place again this year on 28 February and will be broadcast on the Afrikaans music channel (DStv 324) on 4 March at 20:00.

The awards ceremony taking place at the Teatro at Montecasino will be broadcast right after a special red carpet episode of Studio1 at 19:30.