'This is the end, my friend': Final season of Star Trek: Picard on Amazon Prime Video to be a Next Generation reunion: 'This is the end, my friend'.

by Thinus Ferreira

The third and final season of Star Trek: Picard functioning as a cast reunion of the Star Trek: The Next Generation cast, will make its debut on Amazon Prime Video in South Africa on 17 February.

While Star Trek: Picard is a Paramount+ show in the United States, it is available on Amazon Prime Video through a licensing and distribution deal with Paramount Global Content Distribution in 200 countries, including South Africa where Paramount Global hasn't yet launched Paramount+.

Following the third season premiere, new episodes of the 10-episode final season will be available weekly on Amazon Prime Video. The first two seasons are also on Amazon Prime Video.

In the new third season, Ed Speleers joins as a series regular who aids Beverly Crusher's medical efforts on worlds which Starfleet has forgotten, with Todd Stashwick also appearing in a recurring role as the captain of the USS Titan.

Patrick Stewart reprises his iconic role as Jean-Luc Picard, which he played for seven seasons on Star Trek: The Next Generation, and follows this iconic character into the next chapter of his life. 

LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Jonathan Frakes, Gates McFadden, Marina Sirtis, Brent Spiner, Jeri Ryan, and Michelle Hurd also appear in the final season. 

According to the show's logline "In the new season, a desperate message from a long-lost friend draws Starfleet legend Admiral Jean-Luc Picard into the most daring mission of his life, forcing him to recruit allies spanning generations old and new".

"This final adventure sets him on a collision course with the legacy of his past and explosive, new revelations that will alter the fate of the Federation forever."

Amanda Plummer has also joined the cast in a recurring role as Vadic, the mysterious alien captain of the Shrike, a warship that has set its sights on Jean-Luc Picard and his old crewmates from his days on the Enterprise.

Mica Burton and Ashlei Sharpe Chestnut join in recurring roles. Burton plays ensign Alandra La Forge, Geordi La Forge's youngest daughter, and Sharpe Chestnut plays ensign Sidney La Forge, the eldest daughter of Geordi La Forge and helmsman of the USS Titan. Daniel Davis will once again take up the role of the devious Professor Moriarty from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Toks & Tjops returns for season 12 on kykNET with a bar, new theme song and rotating co-presenters.

by Thinus Ferreira

A new 12th season of the Friday night Afrikaans sports talk show, Toks & Tjops starts on kykNET (DStv 144) tonight at 20:00 but it will be without its co-presenter Toks van der Linde who quit in October 2022 over a fight about looming producer changes, and with the addition of a bar.

Toks & Tjops will debut its 12th season tonight at 20:00 on kykNET (DStv 144), with co-presenters Breyton Paulse and Janina Oberholzer who will both be back.

Toks van der Linde is gone and is being replaced by a rotating carousel of new presenters including Afrikaans comedian Hamilton Wessels, Rika Nieuwoudt and the Afrikaans comedian Rikus de Beer, known as Jonathan of Radio Raps who did two seasons of Die Radio Raps Show on VIA (DStv 147) and MultiChoice's streaming service Showmax.

Braaimaster Tommy Dickson, known as Vaaitjie, is also back, but will now braai from behind a red corner counter next to a bar counter around which the presenters will now sit and interact.

The CSaw Media produced show with producer Liebie Opperman, done at Stark Studios in Johannesburg and where the Afrikaans soap Binnelanders is also filmed, will also feature a new set, a new show logo and a new opening theme sung by Robbie Wessels for the live broadcast of the show. 

For the show's new format, a panel of sports experts will be included like former Springbok captain Jean de Villiers, former Springbok player Dr Jannie du Plessis, as well as former rugby player Jonathan Mokuena.

"We're putting on a new jacket but the heart of the show remains the same," says Liebie Opperman.

In October last year Toks van der Linde abruptly quit Toks & Tjops after a behind-the-scenes falling out, saying that he was stabbed in the back by Liebie Opperman, is getting replaced by Rikus de Beer and that he is against Toks & Tjops adding a bar as a set piece and drinking on a show that is considered family viewing.

Toks van der Linde wrote on social media that he had "decided to call it a day" since "trust broke down between Liebie and me". He said "Sjoe, so you learn people with me for 12 years and then he stabs you in the back. New presenter is Radio Raps. Enjoy him you guys".

11th kykNET Silwerskermfees film festival back at Cape Town's Bay Hotel in August 2023 as kykNET adds new origin story doc Agter die Silwerskerm for broadcast.

by Thinus Ferreira

The 11th kykNET Silwerskermfees Afrikaans film festival will take place between 23 and 26 August this year at its longtime azure berth of the Bay Hotel in Camps Bay, Cape Town where multiple new full feature films, including 15 short films will make their debut, along with a first-ever slate of mini-documentaries.

In August, the 11th kykNET Silwerskermfees, a well-attended staple on the calendar of the growing South African film festival circuit, will once again unspool a collection of various features films and short films, in various Afrikaans dialects and genres which have been produced over the past year.

A new addition this year will be the set of mini-documentaries commissioned by the festival which forms part of a festival development project to invest in opening up the factual content genre as the African satellite pay-TV service MultiChoice and M-Net continue to ramp up the output of localised content.

"The Silwerskerm Film Festival plays a seminal role in the sustainability of the local film and television industry as it’s the launch pad for high-quality films as well as the careers of bright and promising storytellers," says Waldimar Pelser, M-Net director of premium channels. 

"We look forward to hosting the festival in August again – the month festivalgoers have become accustomed to.”

On Sunday 12 February at 21:00, kykNET (DStv 144) is screening a new documentary TV special entitled Agter die Silwerskerm chronicling the history and significance of the kykNET Silwerskermfees.

The documentary, produced by Sentient Creative for kykNET, highlights how the South African film festival discovered, fostered and developed a new generation of local filmmakers.

Festival founders Karen Meiring and Jan du Plessis share how the festival was conceived and brought to life in 2012 when the South African film industry was waning due to the lack of funding.

Numerous producers, directors, writers and film crew appear in the documentary whose career trajectory within the industry changed and soared because of the festival's short film incubator project.

Local filmmakers who appear in the Agter die Silwerskerm documentary include Christiaan Olwagen who clinched several awards for movies such as Johnny is nie dood nie, Kanarie and Poppie Nongena, Amy Jeptha and Ephraim Gordon, the visionaries behind the groundbreaking Muslim movie in Afrikaaps Barakat, as well as the filmmaking couple Corné and René van Rooyen who produced Vaselinetjie and Toorbos.

The kykNET Silwerskermfees patron, Arnold Vosloo, also reminisces about his first Silwerskerm film festival experience.

Disney: More Frozen, Zootopia and Toy Story as Disney+ loses 2.4 million subscribers - here are 5 takeaways from the Mouse House's latest quarterly report.

by Thinus Ferreira

In the first quarterly earnings report since he's back as Disney CEO, Bob Iger made several announcements and spoke and gave clarity about several issues - including that Disney+ lost 2.4 million subscribers and is also making more Frozen, Zootopia and Toy Story movies.

Here are 5 takeaways from Disney's latest earnings report:

1. Disney+ lost subscribers

Disney lost 2.4 million subscribers worldwide during the last three months of 2022 and now has 161.8 million subscribers globally. 

This is noteworthy since this is the first decline in Disney+ subscriber numbers since Disney+, which is available in South Africa since last year, launched in the United States in late-2020. Like the majority of streamers, Disney+ isn't profitable but Bob Iger believes Disney+ will turn profitable sometime in 2024.

2. Maybe less, but better content

In the arms race known as the "streaming wars", companies just threw money to produce a lot of content to try and catch up with Netflix, and to attract subscribers and scale up their service offerings - Disney+ included. That period is now fast coming to an end.

"We are going to take a really hard look at everything we make across television and film because things in a more competitive world have just simply gotten more expensive," Bob Iger said on the earnings call and noted that "we were as a company in a global arms race for subscribers".

He also said "We want the quality on the screen, but we have to look at what that costs us".

"In our zeal to go after subscribers, I think we might have gotten a bit too aggressive in terms of our promotion. We took our pricing up substantially on Disney+ and we only suffered a de minimis loss of subs. That tells us something. It may also tell us that the promotion to chase subs that we've been fairly aggressive at, wasn't absolutely necessary."

3. Streaming makes less money but is the future

Bob Iger said that streaming services like Disney+ are not as profitable as linear pay-TV channels but that video streaming is the future and that is what Disney is focused on growing.

"The streaming business, which I believe is the future and has been growing, is not delivering the kind of profitability or bottom-line results that the linear business delivered for us over a few decades. And so we're in a very interesting transition period, but one I think, which is inevitably heading towards streaming."

4. More Frozen, Zootopia and Toy Story

More Elsa! More Buzz Lightyear! More Gazelle! Bob Iger confirmed that Disney will be making further instalments of the hugely popular films Frozen, Zootopia and Toy Story. 

"I'm so pleased to announce that we have sequels in the works from our animation studios to some of our most popular franchises, Toy Story, Frozen and Zootopia," Bog Iger said. "We'll have more to share about these productions soon, but this is a great example of how we're leaning into our unrivalled brands and franchises."

5. Eliminating 7000 jobs

On Disney's earnings call, Bob Iger confirmed that The Walt Disney Company is cutting 7 000 jobs which will represent a reduction of 3.2% of its global workforce of 220 000 people. Bob Iger says the retrenchment are done to cut costs.

Warner Bros. Discovery to keep discovery+ as a separately available streaming service as well as a folded-in tile on rebranded HBO Max.

by Thinus Ferreira

Warner Bros. Discovery has decided to keep its discovery+ video streaming service (which isn't available in South Africa or across Africa) as a separately available streaming service, although it will also be available as a folded-in tile destination on the larger HBO Max streaming service which is yet to be rebranded under a new name.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Warner Bros. Discovery execs have decided not to do away with discovery+ - as has been the plan - but to keep it available as a separate streaming service. 

The thought process behind the scenes is that Warner Bros. Discovery doesn't want to lose the subscribers who are and might be interested in paying for and subscribing to discovery+, which is cheaper and will cost less, but who might abandon or not be willing to pay for the much more expensive HBO Max just to get Discovery content.

Warner Bros. Discovery is realising that some subscribers just want the core content of a streaming service's offering and are willing to pay for just that - case in point discovery+ - but will cancel if they have to pay more to get access to that content when it's folded into a bigger service.

According to The Wall Street Journal report, "the decision to keep discovery+ is part of an effort to avoid risking losing a significant chunk of the app's 20 million subscribers who might not to want to pay the higher price to access that content".

Like discovery+, HBO Max has also been late out of the gate in reaching South African customers, and is also not available in South Africa or across Africa. 

It hasn't yet launched as either a stand-alone streaming service or in a partnership agreement with MultiChoice and hosted on devices like the DStv Explora, with no indication of a date as to when it might launch in South Africa.

Warner Bros. Discovery has also not given any launch date yet of the combined HBO Max and discovery+ streaming service, although it will be in 2023 and the name will very likely just be Max, dropping the HBO.

Is Warner Bros. Discovery's Boomerang TV channel on DStv going bust? Concerned parents say they will cancel MultiChoice if they lose the kids channel and get a price hike.

by Thinus Ferreira

Concerned DStv subscribers who are also parents are worried and not getting any answers about rumours swirling that Warner Bros. Discovery's Boomerang (DStv 302) TV channel is going to disappear at the end of March from DStv - saying if that happens and they get a DStv price hike instead, they will cancel their pay-TV subscriptions.

As yet there's no official confirmation or statement from either Warner Bros. Discovery or MultiChoice as to the fate of Boomerang and whether the Scooby Doo TV channel is safe and staying on DStv, or if it is set to become the first TV channel that will be taken away from DStv subscribers in 2023.

Warner Bros. Discovery, asked in a media query on Monday made to one of its two South Africa PR agencies used in South Africa and told about concerned DStv subscriber parents who are worried and wondering about the future of the LazyTown channel, didn't have any official comment.

MultiChoice, also asked by TVwithThinus on Wednesday about chatter that Boomerang is ending on DStv on 25 March, also didn't have any official comment on the future fate of Boomerang. A MultiChoice spokesperson did say there is going to be news around the Boomerang channel which will be shared with media soon.

Meanwhile, parents and DStv subscribers are talking about the likelihood of the loss of Boomerang, with some who are saying they will be done with DStv and say they will leave if the channel is removed and if they end up getting a DStv price increase instead.

Some parents say they have subscribed to MultiChoice's satellite pay-TV service specifically for the bouquet of kids channels, and for a channel like Boomerang, and that if a kids channel is taken away - like Boomerang for instance - they will seriously reevaluate whether they want to continue with their DStv subscription.

According to an online story by Insidus, Boomerang will go dark on DStv on 25 March and get replaced by Cartoonito. Cartoonito targets younger viewers than Boomerang.

Boomerang was relaunched in 2015 on DStv with a bigger focus on family viewing.

Veteran actor and director Louis van Niekerk dead at 87 after losing his battle against cancer.

by Thinus Ferreira

The prolific and veteran Afrikaans actor and director Louis van Niekerk has died after losing his battle again cancer. He was 87.

Louis van Niekerk died on Tuesday in the Netcare Milpark hospital in Johannesburg.

NvR Management in a statement says "It's with deep sorrow that we heard tonight about the passing of Louis van Niekerk. Sincere condolences to all his family, friends and colleagues. Our culture and arts are poorer. A big tree has fallen today". 

The talented actor appeared in multiple South African TV series on the SABC and kykNET like Egoli, Amalia, Die Vierde Kabinet, Fees van die Ongenooides, Agter Elke Man, Hartland, Zero Tolerance, Villa Rosa, 7de Laan,  Grondbaronne, The Fourth Reich and several films from Die Voortreflike Familie Smit to Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom over decades.

Most recently Louis van Niekerk appeared on kykNET (DStv 144) in the Getroud met Rugby Afrikaans soap as the character of Festus, and also gave his voice to numerous Afrikaans radio dramas.

At Franz Marx's long-running soap Egoli on M-Net Louis van Niekerk worked as supervising producer until August 2009.

He appeared on stage in plays ranging from King Lear, Skoene-Skoene, The Lion in Winter, The Road to Mecca, Siener in the Suburbs, Nag van Legio, All my Sons, Julius Ceasar, Don Gxubane Onner die Boere, The Duck Variations and Mattewis en Meraai to Othello and many more, and was the director of multiple plays like Die Rebellie van Lafras Verwey, Kanna Hy Kô Hystoe, Die Vader, Die Dagboek van Anne Frank, Die Swanesang van Majoor Sommer and Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. 

Louis van Niekerk who was born on 27 June 1935 started his acting career at 12 with his first role in Babs Laker's Ek onthou vir Mamma. 

Louis van Niekerk moved to Pretoria in 1955 where he initially worked as a freelance actor, doing plans for a number of years.

He joined PACT in 1964 where he not just appeared on stage in roles but eventually directed over 200 plays as PACT's head of drama since 1978.

He was married to Lettie Scheepers who died in 1983 and the couple had two sons, Gert and Drikus.

Reporters from eNCA, SABC News and Newzroom Africa embedded with Gift of the Givers and flown to Türkiye to profile organisation's relief work after earthquakes.

by Thinus Ferreira

The disaster relief organisation Gift of the Givers has invited and flown a South African TV news reporter from each of the country's three TV news channels to Türkiye to profile and report on the organisation's humanitarian efforts there following the series of devastating earthquakes in that country this week.

The SABC News (DStv 404) senior reporter Chriselda Lewis, the eNCA (DStv 403) senior reporter Dasen Thathiah, and the Newzroom Afrika (DStv 405) reporter Ahmed Kajee have all been invited by Gift of the Givers and are being flown to Türkiye to witness its support in that country's rescue and recovery efforts.

By Wednesday morning the death toll in Turkey has grown to over 11 000 people after massive earthquakes rocked parts of Southern Turkey and northern Syria on Monday.

The three South African TV reporters are on the same Turkish Airlines plane from Johannesburg as Gift of the Givers staff and their equipment - 50 tons of medical and rescue equipment - all going to Turkey to offer assistance as part of a 30-person team from South Africa, with dr Ahmed Bham leading the urban search and rescue team.

The Johannesburg plane left at 20:00 on Tuesday night for a 9-hour flight, with Gift of the Givers staff from a Cape Town flight also joining them in Turkey.

All three reporters did live reports and interviews on Tuesday evening from OR Tambo airport in Johannesburg or from inside the plane with their respective TV news channels before the flight departed. 

Larry Madowo taking over as latest presenter of African Voices Changemakers on CNN International.

by Thinus Ferreira

CNN which is currently going through a global staff reorganisation process has announced that Africa correspondent Larry Madowo will be taking over as the presenter of its long-running weekly African Voices Changemakers magazine show on CNN International (DStv 401).

The Kenyan Larry Madowo based in Nairobi, replaces Nigeria's Arit Okpo who took over hosting duties of the show three and a half years ago in August 2019. 

While the show's format, content and focus have changed over the past 10 years, it continues to interview various trendsetters across Africa to tell inspiring stories.

Larry Madowo's first episode of African Voices Changemakers will be on 25 February in which he will be interviewing and profiling various people across Africa making positive change on the continent.

African Voices Changemakers profiles entertainers, creatives, athletes, and members of the public who are making a difference and impacting their communities through various initiatives and cultural contributions. 

"I’m looking forward to highlighting outstanding stories and incredible people from across the continent and showing the world these remarkable African changemakers. Having featured on the show before joining CNN, this is a full circle moment for me," says Larry Madowo.

Ellana Lee, CNN International senior vice president and global head of features content, says "Larry is a uniquely experienced journalist with enormous energy, expertise, and skill. He is also incredibly passionate about Africa, and I know is excited by the chance to bring its many varied experiences and stories to a global audience through one of CNN’s longest-running and most successful programmes".

"Larry also has a large and highly engaged social following, which presents a great opportunity for us to further interact with our African Voices Changemakers audience, as well as gain new fans for the show."