National Geographic Channel to produce a film based on Killing Kennedy: The End of Camelot.

The National Geographic Channel (DStv 181) will produce yet another film based on the death of an American president based on the book Killing Kennedy: The End of Camelot written by Bill O'Reilly of the Fox News Channel (TopTV 405).

The National Geographic Channel is getting ready for the global broadcast of the film Killing Lincoln in February with Tom Hanks.

Now the docutainment TV channel is planning to follow it up with yet another two hour factual drama recounting the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, and how a sequence of gunshots in Dallas "not only killed a beloved president, but also propelled the nation into the Vietnam War and a cultural change" says the National Geographic Channel in a statement.

The two hour film will be shown on the National Geographic Channel in 171 countries and will be produced by Ridley Scott.

"Collaborating with National Geographic on Bill O'Reilly's follow-up was an easy decision," says Ridley Scott in the press release. "They share the same passion of storytelling, willing to take creative leaps and risks to keep viewers entertained to tell the provocative story of Kennedy's last days, a pivotal and historic moment."

The National Geographic Channel says the channel is "claiming a stake in producing factual dramas, delivering entertainment with substance."

BREAKING. M-Net moving up Revenge second season starting date; Political Animals indefinitely postponed for now.

In a clever-cool move M-Net is moving up the start of the second season of Revenge after M-Net realized through the pay-TV broadcasters own programme acceptance department that the mini-series Political Animals which was supposed to start soon, isn't suitable for the timeslot of 19:30 where it was initially scheduled to start on 10 January.

The second season of the intriguing and hit new drama Revenge with Emily VanCamp will now start on 10 January at 19:30 on M-Net - much earlier than the original starting date of the second season in February and much closer to the American episode roll-out of episodes where the second season started recently.

Revenge has been a hit for M-Net right out of the box - the show immediately made the list of weekly Top 10 most watched shows on M-Net and continues to generate buzz. It therefore makes perfect sense for M-Net - and benefits M-Net subscribers - to keep the momentum going and to continue with the second season as soon as possible.

Not only will ratings for Revenge on M-Net most probably remain high because there will be minimal interruption to the now established viewing pattern behaviour from subscribers, but the time between overseas spoilers and dramatic reveals for the serialised mystery drama will also be dramatically limited. The second season of Revenge will start on M-Net now only a week after the dramatic first season finale.

Because of its age restriction of 16VSNL, Political Animals, the White House based mini-series with Signourney Weaver can't be shown at 19:30, so M-Net is postponing that show indefinitely to a new to-yet-be-determined new starting date later in 2013.

Meanwhile the brilliant Arrow with Stephen Amell, another brand-new drama which also quickly cracked M-Net's Top 10 list, will continue with its first season with new episodes from 25 January on M-Net at 20:30.

Errol Barnett and Inside Africa on CNN International looking back at 2012 this Friday with a peek of how the weekly show is produced.

The intrepid CNN explorer-newser Errol Barnett and the weekly profile travel-and-country Inside Africa magazine show will take a look back at the best stories and biggest adventures across the African continent in this week's episode on Friday 4 January at 19:30 (South African time) on CNN International (DStv 401) and reveal a bit about how Inside Africa is put together as well.

Errol Barnett took over as the new presenter of Inside Africa on CNN International exactly a year ago in January 2012, and this Friday's episode will be reflecting on the thousands of kilometres he and the production team travelled during the past year.

The episode will also have a sneak peek behind-the-scenes of the CNN show to show viewers how the show is produced and the logistics involved.

The episode will also fill in some of the fascinating backstory behind some of the inserts which was shown on Inside Africa in 2012.

After Friday's episode Inside Africa will repeat on Saturday (5 January) at 13:30 and 20:30, Sunday (6 January) at 06:30, Monday (7 January) at 07:30 and Wednesday 8 January at 10:30.

SABC signs R65 million deal for broadcasting rights to 32 soccer matches of Afcon 2013.

After a long delay the SABC today announced a broadcasting agreement under which the South African public broadcaster will pay R65 million to broadcast 32 soccer games of the African Cup of Nations 2013 on television and radio.

The deal, negotiations which took months to conclude, will result in massive schedule and viewer disruption on the SABC's three TV channels, SABC1, SABC2 and SABC3 which TV with Thinus reported last year would happen from January 2013.

Trade exchange - industry lingo for a media partner giving airtime in exchange for a same-value product offering - forms a part of the multimillion rand deal in which the SABC becomes the host broadcaster of Afcon 2013.

The broadcast agreement will see the SABC pay the local organising committee of Afcon 2013 R65 million in return for the rights to broadcast the soccer tournament taking place in South Africa this year.

"The deal with the local organising committee will reaffirm the SABC's position as the leading broadcaster for major sporting events of national importance," said Hlaudi Motsoeneng, the SABC's acting chief operations officer (COO) at the urgently convened press conference at the SABC which was called this morning.

"We have the skills and capacity to broadcast such events," says Hlaudi Motsoeneng. "The SABC is proud that other African broadcasters on the continent and local broadcasters will be receiving the feed for the tournament from the SABC as the host broadcaster for the tournament."

It is the first time that Afcon is giving a local broadcaster the right to directly capture the visuals and relay it to other broadcaster and video services; previously Afcon outsourced it to third-party companies directly who provided the video feed to broadcasters.

Long-stalled official announcement for Afcon 2013 broadcast deal between SABC and Africa Cup of Nations to be made by SABC later today.

The long-stalled and multiple delayed official announcement between the SABC and Afcon 2013 to officially announce a broadcasting deal between the South African public broadcaster and continental soccer tournament will now be taking place today.

The SABC has suddenly called an urgent press conference for later today to officially announce the deal.

The announcement of the deal has been called three previous times which were all cancelled at short notice.

The SABC told me previously the official announcement to confirm the broadcasting contract signing for Afcon 2013 between the South African public broadcaster and the Africa Cup of Nations is not the SABC's to be made.

The SABC will officially announce the deal at the broadcaster's Auckland Park headquarters later this morning.

The Afcon 2013 coverage will result in massive schedule disruption of the SABC's three TV channels with multiple timeslot and TV show shifts on SABC1, SABC2 and SABC3.

Al Jazeera buys the struggling Current TV channel from Al Gore - report.

The Middle Eastern based Al Jazeera TV news channel is reportedly close to buying out the struggling American actuality TV channel Current TV which went dark on TopTV in South Africa almost a year ago in March 2012.

The British affiliate of the American channel shut shop in March last year which is the channel feed which South African viewers got.

When BSkyB decided to drop Current TV and no longer carry the TV channel, Current TV was forced to shutter its London-based channel while the American side of Current TV which was started by the former American vice president Al Gore in 2005, kept limping along.

The New York Times just broke the news that the Qatar based news channel is close to taking over Current TV which it will redevelop into a new news channel based in New York. Al Jazeera has been struggling to get onto pay-TV platforms in the United States where operators don't want to carry the news channel.

According to The New York Times Current TV could be changed and renamed to Al Jazeera America. Al Jazeera already runs the Al Jazeera news channel in English from Qatar as well as a separate Al Jazeera channel in Arabic. Current TV is run from San Francisco.

UPDATE Thursday 3 January 2013 - Variety reports that the deal is worth $500 million.

There is now a statement about the sale: "We are proud and pleased that Al Jazeera, the award-winning international news organization, has bought Current TV," Al Gore says in a statement. "Current Media was built based on a few key goals: To give voice to those who are not typically heard; to speak truth to power; to provide independent and diverse points of view; and to tell the stories that no one else is telling. Al Jazeera, like Current, believes that facts and truth lead to a better understanding of the world around us."

NBA Countdown on ESPN with a new oval desk, spacious design, is the first brand-new TV set for 2013.

The first new set for 2013 that South African TV viewers will be seeing is that of NBA Countdown on ESPN (DStv 320).

The new set for NBA Countdown with laminated panelling, big plasma screens and a centre-piece oval desk which looks warm, inviting and very spacious.

It is now ESPN's biggest set at its Los Angeles production centre from where its NBA coverage is broadcast worldwide.

TopTV's website hacked again; no subscriber or any sensitive information at risk says pay-TV provider.

The South African pay-TV provider TopTV's website was hacked on 1 January 2013, the second time TopTV's website was hacked after it also happened exactly a year ago in January 2012.

A year ago TopTV's website served malware to subscribers visiting the TopTV's homepage.

Now the HighTech Brazil HackTeam - CrazyDuck, Otrasher and L34NDR0 - claim responsibility for having hacked TopTV's website.

"TopTV is in the process of rectifying the security breach on their website," TopTV says in a statement after I made a media enquiry. "The breach occured early on New Year's Day, 1 January."

"The TopTV website does not contain any sensitive subscriber information, such as subscriber details, nor does it have any financial facility for payment of subscriptions, thus there are no subscriber bank details or any possible trace to these on the site."

"Subscriber information is all contained in the separate and secure CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system, which is unrelated in any way to the TopTV website."

"The website is a portal for information regarding TopTV, its channels, pricing and packaging, and the Top Guide, which provides programme schedule information for the channels.  This information is freely available to the public."

BREAKING. SuperSport signs exclusive pay-TV deal for 2013 for coverage of South Africa's national soccer team friendly matches.

SuperSport has clinched a new exclusive pay-TV broadcasting deal in South Africa to show all of South Africa's soccer team's, the Bafana Bafana, friendly matches which will be played in 2013 in South Africa as well as abroad.

SuperSport will show the matches on MultiChoice's DStv platform and acquired the exclusive pay-TV broadcasting rights for South Africa as well as sub-Saharan Africa and the adjacent islands.

The agreement includes the pay-TV broadcasting rights to other soccer matches of South Africa's national soccer team which the South African Football Association (Safa) has jurisdiction over, the national women soccer team's matches, men and women's national age-group teams and other Safa content, including development and grassroots football TV coverage.

SuperSport said it's "pleased to add Safa's content to our wide array of football and other sport".

"We are proud that our subscribers will be able to support our national team through our exclusive live and high-definition broadcasts," says Happy Ntshingila, the CEO of SuperSport.

"The additional exposure that this deal will give to our national teams will assist us commercially going forward," says Pinky Lehoko, Safa's acting CEO in  the same press statement.