Soccer star Mark Haskins joins e.tv's Sunrise morning breakfast show as new sports anchor.

Mark Haskins, the former Moroka Swallows midfielder has joined e.tv's Sunrise as the new sports anchor and will be making his first appearance on Monday 15 September on e.tv's weekday morning breakfast show.

Mark Haskins is the next sports anchor in a rolling door of sports anchors and morning presenters on Sunrise struggling with stability in terms of on-air talent in the show broadcast between 06:00 and 08:30 on weekdays.

Sunrise has seen a constant roll-over and churn in new faces coming and going and making it difficult for viewers to relate and to get to know and grow with the morning show.

It's not clear what the duration of Mark Haskins' contract with Sunrise is.

Given the abrupt departure of the previous sports anchors, none of whom lasted longer than a year after big fanfare announcements, Mark Haskins and Sunrise have a high bar to cross to win viewers' loyalty and trust.

"Securing the services of Mark Haskins is a great addition to the Sunrise anchor team and he brings with him a wealth of experience," says Nicholas Maphopha, Sunrise executive producer in a statement.

"He is an avid follower of anything sports and I believe that his passion not only of sports but for the country will be greatly welcomed".

Mark Haskins says "it is a daunting change of scenery but I've always enjoyed a challenge and I love pushing boundaries. e.tv and particularly the Sunrise team have made the transition a whole lot easier".

"I fully commit to anything I work on and I will be giving my very best to be relevant on this platform and make a positive difference".

M-Net Edge starting on DStv on 20 October and VUZU AMP starting on 13 October at 17:00 for DStv Premium subscribers.

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M-Net Edge (DStv 102) will launch on 20 October at 19:00 replacing the discontinued M-Net Series Showcase on MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV platform, while VUZU AMP (DStv 114) will start on 13 October at 17:00 in the place of the discontinued M-Net Series Reality.

M-Net Edge, a sister-channel to M-Net on DStv channel 101, will be the more risque family member and will only broadcast for 11 hours per day - from 18:00 to 05:00.

M-Net Edge will carry buzz worthy but titillating shows like Orange is the New Black, Masters of Sex, as well as new seasons of American Horror Story, Defiance and The Americans that M-Net says subscribers "would prefer not to watch with the entire family".

VUZU AMP will have new drama series like The Flash with episodes broadcast soon after the new show starts on 7 October in the United States, and further seasons of The Vampire Diaries, Devious Maids, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, So You Think You Can Dance and Pretty Little Liars.

Vuzu shows like the entertainment news staple V Entertainment, 10 over 10 and Dineo's Diary is apparently also moving from Vuzu to VUZU AMP.

"M-Net Edge and VUZU AMP are taking the curation of top-notch premium television content to an exiting new level," says Yolisa Phahle, M-Net's CEO for South Africa in a statement announcing the two new M-Net channel's names.

"These two contrasting entertainment channels have been created to make it easier for viewers to find out what to watch, where to watch it and at what time".

"As there is now more choice than ever, it is important to create channels that are clearly positioned, allowing viewers to find what they feel like [watching] as fast possible," says Yolisa Phahle.

"Both channels will schedule a combination of first-run programming and iconic shows with schedules designed to correlate with the latest worldwide viewing trends".

SABC furious over hilarious 'sabotage' notification in Auckland Park's old and broken lifts; explains why its First Citizens have to wait for a ride to the top.

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The SABC is furious over an unauthorised message from a Fawlty Towers employee which it calls "an act of sabotage" - a notification which an SABC staff put up in the South African public broadcaster's decrepit lifts and which many employees didn't realise was a joke - to great hilarity of others.

With most of the SABC's lifts and escalators that's over 40 years old and in many instances falling apart and often breaking down, staff tell TV with Thinus that personnel often "wait up to 10 minutes for a lift".

"SABC lifts inside Auckland Park often are often not working, with out of order lifts leading to big frustration," quipped an insider. "At least there's still some people with a sense of humor at Fawlty Towers," said one.

Recently an SABC staff member put up the notice above inside an SABC lift, properly addressing SABC employees and lift users as "First Citizens" - exactly how the SABC address its staff.

"We are pleased to inform you that Schindler's Lifts are due to be repaired and serviced by the year 2099," says the "notice" which some SABC staff mistook for the real thing.

"As a token of our appreciation for your loyalty, you are being encouraged to use the stairs provided for emergency evacuations to proceed to your various work stations".

"Those of you unable to ascend to the top,do not have any ambition in any case and are encouraged to resign," the fake notification told SABC staff.

"We appreciate your patience and know many of you will reach retirement age by the time the lifts are fixed. Together we can climb mountains".

In the internal news letter to staff, a copy of which TV with Thinus obtained, the SABC addresses the lift humour, calls it an "act of sabotage" and threatens the Park's first citizen responsible for the dastardly deed with disciplinary action.

"We are currently experiencing an abnormal amount of lift outages at this time and as First Citizen you are requested to be patient. The situation is getting a necessary intervention," the public broadcaster informed its "citizens".

"There are 39 lifts and 4 escalators in use on the Auckland Park premises.  Most of these lifts and escalators were installed as far back as 1972 making them over forty years old. Due to their age parts are extremely difficult to obtain and in some instances they have to be re-manufactured."

"This causes long outage periods and affects the reliability on these lifts and escalators. This is the main cause of our First Citizens having to wait for lifts".

The SABC powers that be requested its first citizens to please report lift problems "in and around their work" as soon as they become aware of them. It's important to get a reference number which must be kept for all future references.

The SABC said that a tender for the renewal of the Auckland Park lifts and escalators is under evaluation stage "and soon the new maintenance contractor will be appointed" and that the renewed lifts and escalators "will substantially improve the availability of the lifts".

"We are aware of an earlier unauthorised message sent to create confusion. Management regards this message as an act of sabotage and anyone found to have made such remarks will be liable to a disciplinary action".

Oscar Pistorius live TV coverage ramping up on Thursday and Friday to bring South African TV viewers the judgment and analysis, as it happens.

Coverage of the conclusion of the highly sensational Oscar Pistorius murder trial will be ramping up on Thursday and Friday 11 and 12 September on South African television as live court TV coverage resumes on the trial that gripped a fascinated world.

As judgment and a verdict from Judge Thokozile Masipa is delivered in the trial of the paralympic athlete who shot and killed his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp last year on Valentines Day, 14 February 2013, the Oscar Pistorius Trial TV channel on MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV platform will go live again on DStv channel 199, and eNCA also has live coverage as well as special programming.

Neither SABC News (DStv 404) nor ANN7 (DStv 405) issued any coverage and broadcasting or programming advisories.

For the first day of judgment, Thursday 11 September, eNCA will start its live broadcast at 06:00, with live coverage from outside the court and near Oscar Pistorius' uncle's home.

Judge Thokozile Masipa's judgment will start at 09:00 on Thursday. eNCA anchors will speak to specialist reporters Karyn Maughan and Annika Larsen for analysis outside court before and in-between the court proceedings.

On Friday, 12 September, eNCA will go live again at 06:00 and court proceedings will be shown at 09:00 until judgment time, expected in the afternoon. Coverage will continue post the judgment throughout Friday evening.

"The channel has set-up a panel of respected legal experts, social commentators with some studio-based and some on location at the High Court," says Patrick Conroy, the managing director for eNCA.

DStv's Oscar Pistorius Trial TV channel will start at 08:00 on Thursday. Although not communicated by MultiChoice and Combined Artistic Productions, its highly likely that the channel will remain broadcasting on Friday 12 September as well.

Is the clever-cool Connect with Yusuf Omar on eNCA a brand-new (brilliant!) weekly current affairs show just waiting to be born?

A wonderful, brilliant and amazing thing happened on eNCA (DStv 403) this morning at 09:00 when what looks like a brand-new and great new show, Connect with eNCA reporter Yusuf Omar suddenly were broadcast on the South African 24-hour TV news channel.

There was no word from eNCA that Connect would be shown today, no information about it, and at the end of business today eNCA didn't respond with any answers to media enquiries asking for more information about it (although eNCA promised more information on Thursday).

Connect on eNCA with Yusuf Omar was shockingly (in a good sense) different.

It was refreshingly interesting and fun to watch whilst being informative and made for mesmerising and immersive viewing - from the social media commentary guests chosen to weight in and who appeared via Skype, to the screen-integration used, the "show's" novel camera angles employed, and the whole concept of the "show".

Connect, cleverly integrating the memes, themes, technology and style of news gathering and dissemanation used by millions of younger viewers today was only 9 and a half minutes long but was sparkling.

It was filled with facts, graphics and colours along with a cool use of the resources of TV news technology to create a type of an "online, real-time" community, one which was sharing insightful commentary and absorbing it at the same time.

The 4-way simultaneous Skype screen on Connect was cool and gimmicky, but not just gimmicky, and even if it was gimmicky, it was wonderful and new and showed what a South African TV news channel like eNCA is now actually really capable of doing if it tried.

While the weekly Maggs on Media on eNCA on Sundays with Jeremy Maggs is a round-up of media news with great and comprehensive coverage of the South African media, marketing and advertising landscape - a well-produced weekly programme of record, Connect came across as a perfect "little brother" for almost a younger target market, or a social-media savvy, news consumer market.

Cleverly and highly relevant, the "first" topic of Connect was the social media story of the Oscar Pistorius trial or news event.

The "show" within a show dissected the news subject from all sides and angles of the social media spectrum with Yusuf Omar making full use - and to great effect - of the wall screen, complete with preppy lime green tablet in front of him.

Connect on eNCA was cool television - like Al Jazeera's The Stream and Russia Today's Breaking the Set with Abby Martin, - something never yet seen on South African television but seen today and attempted (with success) for the first time on South African TV news.

It was an even better version of The Oscar Pistorius Trial TV channel's now-defunct Social Media Analysis Show which was broadcast at 18:00 while the trial was running and which was anchored by Emma Sadleir. That show was the second most watched show on that DStv channel.

The 9 and a half minute Connect "show" done by Yusuf Omar is now on YouTube:

BREAKING. Platco Digital's OpenView HD adding Christian TV channel, Relevant TV, from 15 September to channel 253.

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Platco Digital's OpenView HD (OVHD) is adding Relevant TV as a brand-new Christian TV channel from Monday 15 September on channel 253 which will broadcast for 24 hours per day.

Relevant TV calls itself a "non-denominational, multi-national Christian lifestyle TV channel" and has Joshua McCauley as founder.

Relevant TV, primarily targeting young adult viewers, says it will be covering premier conferences from around the world and from local African churches as a free-to-air TV channel, and will also broadcast Christian faith-based, family-friendly movies as part of the weekly schedule.

Relevant TV will also aim to broadcast kids programming, music, live events, talk shows and weekly inspirational shows as it covers the whole spectrum of Christianity.

TV with Thinus understands that Relevant TV will provide South African viewers with a 6 hour loop of fresh new content on Monday to Friday, and a 12 hour loop on Saturday and Sunday, repeated during the rest of the time.

"Relevant TV will bring great content which will motivate and uplift the viewer," says Joshua McCauley. "We strive to bring quality to the Christian TV market that has not yet been experienced in South Africa".

"We are proud to welcome Relevant TV to the OpenView HD family," says Maxwell Nonge, the managing director of Platco Digital.

"This new addition allows us the ability to offer a Christian TV experience that is in line with our diverse audience and quality programming".

Siki Mgabadeli's new weekday business show on eNCA from 1 October will be called Moneyline.

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eNCA has refused to divulge the name of Siki Mgabadeli's new half hour business show which will start on Wednesday 1 October at 21:00 on weekdays on eNCA (DStv 403) so TV with Thinus will reveal it: It will be called Moneyline.

South African viewers watched a Moneyline of a different kind when CNN International first became available in South Africa on the SABC's then TV1 when Lou Dobbs was the anchor of the daily Moneyline on the channel which was simulcast for a few hours per day.

Siki Mgabadeli will anchor Moneyline on eNCA from Mondays to Thursdays as eNCA's new senior business anchor, while Arabile Gumede will be anchoring the Friday night slots.

SABC's HD Outside Broadcast vans used tonight for the first time in history in 4 different countries, in 4 different cities across Africa.

For the first time in history, the SABC's high definition (HD) Outside Broadcast vans (called OB vans in the biz) will be used in 4 different countries, in 4 different cities, across the African continent for different broadcasters.

The remarkable achievement from the SABC comes as SABC HD OB vans are stationed in Cape Town in South Africa, as well as in Botswana, Lesotho and in Mozambique to capture and broadcast the AFCON qualifying matches for 2015.

Using the SABC's HD OB vans from the South African public broadcaster's Television Outside Broadcast division (TVOB) are the SABC's sports division, SABC Sport, as well as TV Mozambique and Sport 5.

These qualifying AFCON matches are also broadcast in Europe with the SABC providing the satellite uplinks.

Each SABC HD OB van is manned by around 20 people comprising the technical, production and operational crew.

The production crews in the countries outside of South Africa will each be using 6 cameras, slomo and edit fascilities, while the SABC's production crew in Cape Town will be even larger, using 19 cameras, including super slomo's.

The SABC says the South African public broadcaster looks forward to being able to broadcast future events of this magnitude as the biggest public service broadcaster in Africa.

SHOCKER. MultiChoice's DStv and Disney now targeting very young children with TV commercials on Disney Junior and Disney Channel.

The big scary isn't the troll under the bridge: MultiChoice's DStv and The Walt Disney Company is ready to start targeting very young children specifically and little young viewers by adding TV commercials to Disney Junior (DStv 309) and Disney Channel (DStv 303) in a crass commercialisation of kids TV channels parents used to trust for not selling to kids.

It's not immediately clear why MultiChoice, DStv Media Sales and Disney are damaging the DStv and Disney brands - names which DStv subscribers and Disney-loving parents have come to trust to be better kids channels - by starting targeted commercials aimed at small children.

Disney Channel and Disney Junior had a safer reputation, making parents feel safe and good to allow their tots and teens to watch, knowing that their children are not specifically targeted by advertisers through crass commercials and sponsors.

Well, not any more.

From November Disney's Disneymedia+ will be shamelessly selling to kids as young as 4 watching television with the permission of MultiChoice's DStv when what the TV and ad industry calls "spot advertising" is added for the first time to Disney Channel and Disney Junior which has the youngest viewers.

The Disney Channel which is 8 years old on MultiChoice's DStv this month, reaches 287 000 kids between the ages of 4 and 14.

Now DStv, Disney and Disneymedia+ are swinging open the doors to commercial advertisers to target these very young viewers with commercial considerations while the little eyes are watching their kiddie shows in front of the telly.

Disney Junior which reaches 1.3 million little ones from the age of 4 and up and which launched in 2011, will now bombard some of the youngest viewers on television with commercials and advertising in a disgusting change from November.

It's not clear why the monthly subscription fee parents pay to have these Disney channels as part of their DStv package, and which was fine until now without commercials, seems to no longer be enough money and why Disney and DStv want to make even more money from commercials on these kids channels which didn't have it before.

Disney XD which has been boy focused with older somewhat older viewers and more action-oriented shows launched in 2011 and has been carrying advertising.

MultiChoice South Africa and Disney didn't immediately respond to media enquiries regarding why advertising needs to be introduced on kids channels which were fine without it, whether there is advertising that Disney won't run, and why Disney and DStv is doing and allowing advertising to very small children when it didn't do so before.

UPDATE: Disney is responding, and is explaining why Disney is set to start showing TV commercials on The Disney Channel and Disney Junior to young viewers on DStv.