Netflix plans to be global by 2016, including South Africa, says the growing video internet streaming service.

Netflix, the growing video internet streaming service which is accelerating its worldwide accessibility, will definitely be available in South Africa before the end of 2016 a Netflix spokesperson told TV with Thinus on Thursday night.

It follows the aggressive roll-out of Netflix - currently accessible in about 50 countries - to more countries across Europe at the end of 2014. Netflix will roll out from March in Australia and New Zealand - places with highly comparable TV markets to South Africa.

"We intend to make Netflix globally available by the end of 2016 including South Africa," a Netflix spokesperson told me last night.

Netflix wants to aggressively expand its on demand streaming service to an additional 150 countries within the next two years, to 200 countries and territories, in order to create "material global profits" from the beginning of 2017.

Netflix's arrival in South Africa - a TV and video market still hampered by slow and expensive internet and broadband costs - will mean an avalanche of new content as the company has started to ramp up production of original new series, and plans to roll out about 20 new TV shows per year besides its library series and movie catalogue.


Will end "geoblocking"
Netflix also plans to end "geoblocking"as soon as possible, giving people worldwide the same access, as far as possible, to the same content at the same time.

At the moment Netflix is blocked in South Africa and in several other countries outside of the United States where Netflix doesn't yet run a regionalised service, with users who have to make use of a "VPN" to circumvent the regional restrictions at an additional monthly cost.

Netflix' arrival in South Africa within a year or two carries implications most notably for MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV service and the pay-TV broadcaster M-Net who for the past two decades worked hard to secure exclusive broadcasting rights to top American TV shows in elaborate and multi-year deals with Hollywood studios and international distributors.

Although Netflix doesn't have sport, it did already sign rights for hugely popular and buzz-worthy Netflix produced shows like House of Cards and Orange is the New Black which are currently being shown on M-Net.

With critically acclaimed shows like these which will run several more seasons - definitely longer than the next two years and will thus overlap with Netflix's South African launch - these Netflix shows will either start to disappear from M-Net and DStv prior to Netflix's launch as it prepares to enter the market within the next two years to make it available on its own service, or Netflix will "take it back" whenever it can after its launch.

Already with Netflix's launch in Australia, neither House of Cards nor Orange is the New Black will be available on Netflix there - the dramas are shown on Foxtel due to similar pre-existing broadcast licensing deals signed with Foxtel prior to Netflix's entry into those countries next month.

Besides DStv and M-Net, the arrival of Netflix will also mean direct competition for new South African video-on-demand (VOD) players like VIDI, Altech's Node and MTN's FrontRow which all launched services in the latter part of last year.  


Global roll-out, global content
Netflix surprised this week with the announcement of its aggressive worldwide strategy during the announcement of its latest quarterly results, and says that its plan is to sign content deals on a global basis.

What is means is that Netflix wants to release and show the same show, like Orange is the New Black or Marco Polo at the same time in all the countries it can, for viewers to binge-watch at their own time, releasing a brand-new TV series every three weeks.

"We had the vision to start to figure out how to get global rights for some of the content by moving up the food chain," Reed Hastings, Netflix CEO, said this week on the company's conference call.

"We have been pushing on that dimension, where we can get the global rights and we don't have to go country by country across 200 countries, but can instead provide the producer upfront money, guaranteed money and get great access".

Netflix chief content officer, Ted Sarandos, said that "instead of having to go country by country to pile up those deals, and line up those windows, this enables us to make the service, the selection, far more global for viewers around the world who increasingly know exactly when these shows began, and are hungry to see them as soon as they can".

SABC's Aucklandpark headquarters, all SABC regional offices and Sentech all part of South Africa's list of national 'key points'.

The entire South African public broadcaster - the SABC's Aucklandpark headquarters in Johannesburg as well as all the SABC's regional offices countrywide - and the parastatal signal distributor Sentech are included on the list of national "key points".

Included in the 200 places of national strategic importance, according to the South African government, is the SABC's office in Cape Town and Bloemfontein, Kimberley, Port Elizabeth, Polokwane, Bisho, Tshwane, the SABC's offices in the North West and in Durban, Nelspruit, and the SABC's outside broadcasting division in Cape Town.

Also included on the list as national key points are Sentech's Brixton Tower in Johannesburg as well as Sentech's satellite and transmission centre.

These places, according to the government - and never before officially named or revealed - require "additional security" and it's according to the government illegal to be identified or to be photographed.

Both the SABC - its headquarters in Aucklandpark, as well as its regional offices countrywide has often been photographed from the outside, and gets photographed and has been photographed, numerous times from the inside.

The police ministry at the end of 2014 brought an appeal to a court order to keep this list and information from South Africans, but then withdrew the appeal.

In 2014 the South Gauteng High Court ruled in favour of the Right2Know Campaign (R2K) and the SA History Archive (Saha) and ordered the police to tell South Africans and to disclose the list of these so-called "secret" and out of bounds and protected areas within South Africa.

The South African government argued unsuccessfully that making the information known and disclosing the list, will put South Africa's security at risk.

The Right2Know Campaign successfully argued that the secrecy is being used to undermine ordinary South Africans' civic rights and their rights to know and to protest and picket at places - like for instance at the SABC.

In 2014 the SABC's Aucklandpark headquarters saw the most protest action in the history of the South African public broadcaster, with numerous picketing action, marches and public protest in front of the SABC's doors, ranging from political parties to civil rights organisations and public broadcasting groups.

FASHION FAIL: E! Entertainment's 'new' Fashion Police with Kathy Griffin on DStv a TV disaster; pretending to be what it can never be again.

"This could have been a disaster," quipped the purple coiffed Kelly in the return of Fashion Police on E! Entertainment (DStv 124) following the sudden-shocking death of Joan Rivers in 2014, commenting on a 2015 Golden Globe actress' wearables.

Instead of "could have been" she should have used the word "is".

The "new" Fashion Police on E! Entertainment is a television disaster just like SABC1's "new" Generations - The Legacy.

Kathy Griffin replacing Joan Rivers and Brad Goreski (who likes to tell us he is gay) in the place of the dumped George Kotsiopoulos is now soulless TV trash, trying to emulate the spirit of something it can't, and pretending to be something it no longer is.

The production values visibly took a nosedive - why E! Entertainment and the producers felt the need to change the opening title graphics and package of Fashion Police from the vibey, colourful and pumping opener to a shockingly dated 80s CNN Style with Elsa Klench mix-up is anyone's guess.

It looks old. It looks tired. It looks dark. Everything the fashion world, which Fashion Police purportedly tries to comment on, abhors.

The new Fashion Police set: Green and black and dark - as if Melissa Rivers or someone who should know better, forgot to cover up some actual studio green screen.

The seating arrangements started off wrong. Giuliana Rancic and Kelly Osbourne who are still on the show no longer sat together for the new Fashion Police debut. That dynamic brought laughs previously as they used to lunge, grab and hold on to each other during certain really crazy jokes.

Now they worked together, subtly, to undermine Kathy Griffin from opposite sides and their common target and "enemy" Kathy Griffin in the middle. Why Brad Goreski (who likes to tell us he is gay) is on the show is anyone's guess. Tell Gargamel there's an obnoxious Smurf he never knew about.

By the second episode Fashion Police thankfully placed Giuliana Rancic and Kelly Osbourne next to each other again on the left side (although they've now switched seats; Giuliana is closer to the middle to anchor the show). One production point to the better for Griffin-dor!

Viewers can feel the subtle disses towards Kathy Griffin on the new Fashion Police after just two episodes.

You realise that you're no longer watching four friends chatting and joking and having fun. You're watching two friends (Giuliana Rancic and Kelly Osbourne), a stylist (who likes to tell us he is gay over and over) and comedian Kathy Griffin who is stilted and short on actual funny jokes and keeps repeating the same hammed lines.

It's not that viewers don't like change and won't accept the new Fashion Police. It's that the new Fashion Police is worse production wise that the original.

It's a given that Kathy Griffin would have been very nervous stepping into Joan Rivers' chair. But didn't they do a dry-run? And why is everything and everyone still so awkward after the second episode of Fashion Police?

Giuliana Rancic has taken over as unofficial master of ceremonies (she even says "ladies and gentlemen"),making it even more awkward, in addition to Kathy Griffin no longer being the final arbiter of best and worse dressed.

It's awkward having to listen to Kathy Griffin just going with a denounced "okay", "okay" after the rest of the trio have chimed in with their opinions - emotionally and visibly seceding in perceived "power" from the dominant role Joan Rivers held.

Yes. Kathy Griffin is not Joan Rivers. And isn't trying to be.

But then E! Entertainment should perhaps not have continued Fashion Police after her death.

The "new" Fashion Police is not fun and not funny. It's not fun to watch. It's not insightful.

The foursome now try to do filthy jokes but without proper context and which isn't about the actual outfits and clothes and how it looks on the stars like during the tenure of Joan Rivers - which in itself makes the jokes and them, and watching them, feel even more awkward.

Kathy Griffin is not in control of the show. Neither is Giuliana Rancic who tries to either "help" or "undermine" or "step in and save" - none of which is effectively working and all of which is making it worse. It makes the "new" Fashion Police strange and uncomfortable to watch.

Fashion Police on E! Entertainment used to be like fresh champagne while Joan Rivers was still alive. It was effervescent pop culture - with spot-on zingers and timeous, relevant commentary.

Now like a glamorous party where the waiters carry around champagne on silver trays - still in flute glasses but the drinks now devoid of bubbles after its been poured and left standing for too long - Fashion Police is still there but not sparkling.

Perhaps the time has come for Fashion Police to gracefully call it a night, and for E! Entertainment as the host to open a brand new bottle.

SABC issues a press release regarding programming and scheduling changes on the SABC for AFCON 2015 ... 4 days after it already happened.

A lot of what is wrong and broken with the SABC is its bad and often non-existent communication to the South African press - both evidence of its regression and part of the actual cause of its tarnished public image as the country's public broadcaster.

Yet another case in point: On Wednesday evening 21 January, the SABC's cranky marketing and publicity machine managed to sputter forth a press release regarding the specific programming and scheduling changes across the SABC's three TV channels due to Afcon 2015.

It was about changes which already came into effect days before from Saturday 17 January.

Why even bother? SABC viewers who were not told by publications like newspapers and magazines (who would have run the information if they received it last week or even before the start of the weekend) already had to try and figure out on their own where Generations - The Legacy, the Sotho TV news bulletins and other cascade programming shifted to on SABC1, SABC2 and SABC3.

Places like TV with Thinus already reported back at the beginning of December 2014 about the major scheduling disruptions again coming to the SABC in January 2015.

That is when the SABC should have started to communicate about its schedules for Afcon 2015.

It didn't and couldn't be bothered although the specific information regarding Afcon 2015 matches and the SABC schedules were all available to the SABC.

The SABC could only issue a press release about its most important asset - its programming - 4 days after it changed in a major way, to "alert" viewers about changes which had already happened.

It defies belief, and yet its exactly what happens.

Unlike other broadcasters the SABC can't even get itself to tell why viewers should watch Afcon 2015 (on the SABC), why it matters, what the SABC will bring or do "better", what on-air talent, soccer analysts, studio presenters or additional programming like the Afcon 2015 pre-shows and wrap-up summaries it has.

The SABC can't care to tout its talent, send a nice studio pic of the soccer presenters, include a quote.

Below is the SABC's belated, irrelevant, eye-rolling press release of 21 January.

It comes complete with "spelling mistakes" like Radio and other capitalisation mistakes, DSTV, and spacing problems like SABCTV (which are not unique to just this SABC press release) and which makes news editors, night editors, subs and journalists at publications across South Africa honestly just sigh - often - as they try to stay calm and carry on:

KEY SCHEDULE CHANGES AS SABC DELIVERS AFCON 2015

 32 games live on 4 TV Channels and 19 Radio Stations

 Wednesday 21 January, 2015, 

The AFCON 2015 is a 3-week-long soccer spectacular which started on Saturday 17 January and will conclude with a thrilling finale on Sunday 08 February 2015. The SABC is committed to broadcasting live all the 32 games across its various broadcast platforms, including Radio and TV.

SABC1 carries the bulk of the games with a total of 27, followed by SABC3 with 4 games and 1 game scheduled on SABC2. SABC News Channel on DSTV broadcast the highlights from the tournament.

A transversal schedule strategy has been put in place with key SABC1 prime-time shows moving to SABC2 for the duration of the football tournament and, other notable schedule changes across the 3 SABCTV channels as reflected below:

• Generation -The Legacy – on SABC2 at 20h00
• Setswana/Sesotho & Nguni News - on SABC2 at 19h30
• Skeem Saam S3 on SABC2 – at 20h30
• Main News bulletin on SABC3 – moves to an earlier timeslot at 17h30 on Wed 21 & 28 January
• Isidingo on SABC3 - falls away on 21 & 28 January

As a result of SABC1 being the official broadcaster of AFCON 2015, the SABC‘s Nguni News will be broadcast on SABC2 at 19h30, alternating with the Sotho news.

Former SABC executive in court on charges of extortion and blackmail, kickbacks, corruption and fraud of R325 080.

A former SABC executive, Thembani Mazaleni (38) has appeared in the Specialised Commercial Crimes Court in Bellville, Sapa reports, on charges related to alleged extortion and blackmail, receiving kickbacks and corruption which defrauded the SABC of R325 080.

It includes two charges of fraud totalling R43 080 and extortion of R282 000.

Thembani Mazaleni, a former marketing executive at the SABC, allegedly verified invoices that was submitted by service providers like Albertina Jaxa, who did translation work for the SABC into several of the 11 official South African languages.

Albertina Jaxa allegedly borrowed Thembani Mazaleni money, which he allegedly failed to repay.

Thembani Mazaleni then allegedly turned the loans into kickbacks in the sense of Albertina Jaxa then paying him for work, he commissioned her in the first place to do.

Thembani Mazaleni allegedly went further and threatened Albertina Jaxa that she would lose her contract with the SABC if she told anyone, allegedly getting R282 000 from Albertina Jaxa through a process of extortion between 2007 and 2011, as well as fake invoices.

SABC1's new telenovela, Uzalo, set to take on Mzansi Magic's Isibaya from 9 February in the same timeslot of 20:30 for 3 days a week.

The SABC first rejected the pitch for the show and forced the producers to retool it, but now, 3 years later, the new Zulu telenovela Uzalo from Stained Glass Productions will finally make it to TV.

The ambitiously filmed KwaZulu-Natal local drama Uzalo will starts on 9 February at 20:30 on SABC1 - trying to win back some audience share and viewers for the SABC against the Mzansi Magic (DStv 161) telenovela-turned-soap soap juggernaut Isibaya in the same timeslot.

Each half hour episode which SABC1 will broadcast from Mondays to Wednesdays from 9 February, revolves around the Mdletshe and the Xulu families, straddling the world's of crime and church.

Uzalo is set in KwaMashu in Durban and also filmed on location in the township's F-section since December 2014.

Despite several production and writing challenges SABC1 and the production company believe that the new telenovela following after Generations - The Legacy in the 20:30 timeslot will keep viewers tuning in.

SABC2 plans to have its own telenovela on the air this year, and told TV critics in 2014 that it is looking at July 2015 to start its own local telenovela - the South African public broadcaster's second one.

One of president Jacob Zuma's daughters, Gugulethu Zuma-Ncube is the producer of Uzalo, together with Pepsi Pokane, with the playwright-producer Duma Ndlovu now writing the scripts after several other writers were initially tasked with producing scripts but left.

SABC1 describes Uzalo as "a provocative, bold and authentic narrative that tells the story of two family dynasties and the two young men who carry their hopes and legacies as they face the complexities of money, family and love".

What is means is that Uzalo will revolve around two sons of two families - one "good" and one "bad" and the conflict and friendship between them and their families.

The KwaMashu-born Bheki Mkwane from Isibaya on DStv's Mzansi Magic channel supplied by M-Net, will now appear in the rival localdrama Uzalo as patriarch pastor Melusi Mdletshe. Leleti Khumalo plays the pastor wife Zandile Zulu.

Other Uzalo stars include Khumbulani 'Kay' Sibiya, Naymaps Maphala and Mpumelelo Bhulose and Dawn Thandeka-King.

Juliet Newell the new anchor of ANN7's news programme, ANN7 Prime; CNBC Africa's Natassia Arendse joins as a business anchor.

Juliet Newell is the new anchor of ANN7 Prime, the primetime nightly news programme, on ANN7 (DStv 405), filling the void after Chantal Rutter Dros left ANN7 in December 2014.

Natassia Arendse has also left CNBC Africa (DStv 410) to join ANN7 as a business anchor and producer.

"ANN7 can confirm that Juliet Newell is the new prime anchor for ANN7 Prime, weekly from 19:00 to 20:00," ANN7 tells TV with Thinus.

Juliet Newell officially joined ANN7 last month.

She previously appeared as a presenter on The Home Channel and Summit TV (now BusinessDay TV or DBTV) two of BDFM Publishers supplied TV channels on MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV platform, as well as anchoring on e.tv's former breakfast show, Morning Edition.

Before that Juliet Newell made several TV appearances across M-Net and the SABC in TV dramas, soaps and TV commercials.

Natassia Arendse has left CNBC Africa and has joined ANN7 as a business anchor and producer and currently hosts a business segment on ANN7's morning show Vuka Africa at 08:30, says the Infinity Media owned 24-hour TV news channel.

"ANN7 is excited to have the likes of of Juliet Newell and Natassia Arendse on board and we look forward to a long and fruitful relationship with both of our fresh faces and exciting new talent," Quraysh Patel, ANN7 general manager tells TV with Thinus.

Sony's hack attack in 2014 in America impacting e.tv in 2015 in South Africa - here's just one example.

You won't find episode synopses on the electronic programme guides (EPGs) of MultiChoice's DStv, On Digital Media's StarSat or Platco Digital's OpenView HD, printed in the TV tabloids or newspaper TV listings of February's upcoming episodes of The Young and the Restless - and it's not part of a fiendish plot by Victor Newman to get back at Nikki.

Episode synopses for weekdays soaps are usually issued a month to a month and a half in advance of the actual broadcast date to the press by broadcasters since the factory-run TV puppy mills churn out episodes with a 2-month buffer period - except in extreme circumstances where major production disruption occurs like for instance SABC1's Generations which completely shut down in November 2014.

Something else that shut down at the end of 2014 however was Sony Pictures in Los Angeles.

An intrusive and devastating cyber attack, exposing dirty studio insider secrets while internal correspondence, movie deals and payments, contact details, salacious studio executive emails ("Kevin Hart is a whore") and even unreleased Sony movies came flooding out.

Due to intense paranoia and security concerns, Sony Pictures clamped down and regressed to Hollywood's "dark ages" - basically doing everything since December on pen and paper, issuing paychecks manually on old machines, using BlackBerrys, fax machines and Gmail accounts and picking up the phone to actually call people and completely avoiding email.

In a globalised electronic entertainment world where Hollywood studios, distributors and broadcasters are inextricably linked, 2014's Sony hack attack is impacting distributors and broadcasters around the world in big and small ways - with a lot of it not readily visible or known to ordinary, outsider consumers and viewers.

One small absence like e.tv's The Young and the Restless episode synopses is however part of the little canaries in the coal mine signaling how truly devastating Sony's hack attack really was and its ongoing global impact on the entertainment biz.

e.tv in South Africa usually receives its monthly The Young and the Restless episode synopsis directly from Sony Pictures in Los Angeles. But Sony Pictures is now scared of email and has reverted to doing as much as possible on actual physical reams and reams of paper.

With the system being hacked and Sony Pictures slowly coming to grips with the hack impact and restarting, renewing and restoring the hacked system, Sony Pictures has not been able to, or refrained from sending February episode synopses of The Young and the Restless.

e.tv literally doesn't have it yet - unless, or until the disused fax machine in Marcel Golding's gilded but now empty corner office perhaps sputters to life.

So here's a little clue as to Sony's health report in 2015 as the globo company slowly nurses itself back to health after the hack:

When you are able to read again about Victor and Nikki and the rest of the people of Genoa City, realise that it signals that blood is once again starting to circulate through the veins of Sony's damaged worldwide content distribution system.

BBC World News adds new weekly satire segment, What's Up Africa, with Nigerian vlogger Ikenna Azuike.

BBC World News (DStv 400 / StarSat 256) is adding a new weekly satire segment on Fridays, What's Up Africa, with the Nigerian-born vlogger Ikenna Azuike.

The 11-part What's Up Africa satire segments are shown during Friday's Focus on Africa on BBC World News as part of a co-production between the BBC and the Dutch media organisation Radio Netherlands Worldwide (RNW) where Ikenna Azuike worked as a producer.

In What's Up Africa the lawyer turned journalist Ikenna Azuike gives his satirical take on the news.

"I started What's Up Africa because I felt that a lot of the coverage of my home continent was either too focused on presenting images of war, famine and general disorder, or sugar-coated reports of Africa's progress," says Ikenna Azuike.

"Focus on Africa has always been pioneering, looking for new ways to engage with our audiences across a range of different platforms," says Kathy Harcombe, What's Up Africa producer.

"What's Up Africa fits perfectly with this ethos; it is irreverent and inventive and aims to give an alternative view of the continent. It opens up debate on topical issues."

"It is not just three minutes of video - it's the start of a conversation. We think that existing viewers will enjoy this new slot and hope it will also appeal to new audiences," says Kathy Harcombe.