Footprint of the SABC's SABC News channel on MultiChoice's DStv extended into the rest of Africa beyond just South Africa from today.

MultiChoice is extending the footprint of the South African public broadcaster's 24-hour TV news channel, SABC News (DStv 404) on its DStv satellite pay-TV platform to the rest of the continent from today.

There's been no official announcement or statement from the SABC, but from today the SABC News channel will now be available to DStv subscribers in several other African countries beyond just South Africa.

The extended footprint for SABC News comes almost two years after the channel finally launched on DStv in August 2013.

SABC News replaced the SABC's first struggling attempt at a 24-hour news channel named SABC News International.

SABC News International was unceremoniously shut down after bleeding millions of rand after just three years in operation at the end of March 2010.

The SABC News channel is part of a highly controversial deal worth millions of rand that the public broadcaster's famously matricless chief operating officer (COO) Hlaudi Motsoeneng signed with MultiChoice.

As part of the deal, SABC News, produced with public broadcaster resources as a public broadcasting TV channel, is exclusively available to DStv only, keeping it off On Digital Media (ODM) and China's StarTimes Media SA's StarSat, as well as Sabido and Platco Digital's OpenView HD satellite TV platforms.

In March the SABC planned to remove all of the half hour bulletins in all of the other official South African languages besides English on the SABC News channel from April, due to the coming extended reach of the channel further into Africa, but then ended up not going through with the change.

"Because the channel [SABC News] is aired in other countries, it only makes sense to keep the channel entirely English," the SABC said at the time.

Asked about the extended footprint further into Africa, MultiChoice confirmed to TV with Thinus that SABC News is becoming available in more African nations on DStv besides just South Africa.

"The SABC News channel is being added to DStv across the Africa continent on 22 May as part of our celebration of Africa Month. We believe this channel will be particularly relevant to the hundreds of thousands of expatriate South Africans who live in other parts of the continent," says MultiChoice.

"Together with approximately 2.4 million DStv customers outside of South Africa, they will now have access to 24-hour South African news, information and opinion," says the satellite pay-TV operator.

In March an SABC insider told TV with Thinus that the SABC News channel is planning and working on "a new daily bulletin with Africa news to compete with the international TV news channels", although that has not yet started.

SABC spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago failed to respond to a media enquiry made Thursday about the continental expansion of SABC News across Africa and what it means for the programming and scheduling currently on the channel.

SABC News will become available as a TV channel to all South Africans as part of the SABC's digital bouquet of five TV channels - including SABC1, SABC2, SABC3 and SABC Encore (DStv 156) currently on DStv - once the South African government's long-delayed switch-on happens of digital terrestrial television (DTT) as part of the country's digital migration process away from analogue broadcasting.

Today's interesting TV stories to read from TV with Thinus - 21 May 2015.

MUST SEE. The "wallpaper" TV that's so thin, you can roll it up.
And hang it on a wall, using magnets. The LG TV is less than 1mm thick.

MultiChoice launches DStv BoxOffice in Tanzania.
Following the launch in Uganda earlier this week, MultiChoice's movies on demand service is now also expanding to Tanzania.

Turkish TV talent show contestant shot in the head.
Mutlu Kaya was shot on Monday after receiving death threats warning her not to take part in Sesi Cok Guzel.

Why most of the upcoming new TV season's new shows will flop.
Because in America one TV network won't allow a rival to pay advertising money to buy a commercial to promote their own show on another channel - although, ironically, more viewers watching, helps everybody.

Shonda Rhimes tells Grey's Anatomy fans off on Twitter.
Tells fans "Do not waste your time Tweeting me, boo. Go and do something fun that brings u joy!"

'SABC is in crisis, the scale of which is only starting to become clear,' says Democratic Alliance's Gavin Davis; SABC 'facing financial ruin'.

South Africa's minister of communications, Faith Muthambi, was slammed on Wednesday as "willfully misunderstanding her role in relation to the SABC" for saying the beleaguered public broadcaster is a state-owned company.

Gavin Davis, a Democratic Alliance (DA) member of parliament and a member of the portfolio committee on communications on Wednesday said the SABC is in crisis, "the scale of which is only starting to become clear" and that "the SABC is facing financial ruin".

He slammed Faith Muthambi, saying she "believes that the SABC is a state-owned company instead of an independent public broadcaster" and that South Africa will face "humiliation on a global scale" in less than a month when the country miss the internationally agreed to deadline to complete the switch from analogue to digital terrestrial television (DTT), a process known as digital migration.

Gavin Davis told parliament that Faith Muthambi has failed in her promise of a new SABC CEO to be appointed by September 2014 and that the SABC is being taken back to an apartheid era tool in the hands of ruling party politicians.

Gavin Davis told parliament that since a year ago "we've had an SABC board chairperson [Ellen Tshabalala] resign because she was caught lying about her qualifications. But this was only after 6 damaging months of postponed hearings, court cases and other delaying tactics".

"We've had an SABC chief operating officer (COO) [Hlaudi Motsoeneng] who has been shielded and promoted when the Public Protector said he should have been fired".

"We have a Government Communication and Information System (GCIS) that is abused to promote the majority party, including the channeling of public money into the coffers of a government-friendly newspaper owned by the president's friends".

"In a few weeks on 17 June, we face humiliation on a global scale because, on that day, we will miss the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) deadline to switch over from analogue to digital television".

"If Faith Muthambi had not spent the last year meddling with the Digital Migration Policy, and waging an obsessive turf war to control the process, it is unlikely that we would be in the embarrassing position we now find ourselves in," said Gavin Davis.

While she promised that a new SABC CEO would be in place by the end of September 2014, nine months later the post is still vacant.

"Faith Muthambi wants to take us back to the apartheid era when the SABC was a tool in the hands of politicians, instead of a resource belonging to the people of this country. This is why Faith Muthambi thinks there is nothing wrong with unilaterally seizing the powers of the SABC board, even though this is in clear contravention of the Broadcasting Act," said Gavin Davis.

He also noted that with Faith Muthambi directly interfering with the governance of the SABC and instrumental in the purging of three SABC board members - Hope Zinde, Rachel Kalidass and Ronnie Lubisi - earlier this year, the unstable SABC board which has had only an acting SABC chairperson for months and originally had 12 board members, no longer has a quorum to legally constitute meetings.

"No wonder the SABC is in crisis, the scale of which is only starting to become clear," said Gavin Davis.

"The SABC faces a projected loss of R501 million for the financial year just ended on March 31. This loss is projected to double to R1 billion in the next financial year. The SABC is not on a 'sound financial footing but facing financial ruin," said Gavin Davis.

"We need to work together to find the most qualified and independently minded candidates to take up positions on the SABC board and then they need to be left alone to do their jobs in the interests of the public we serve. These steps will go some way to get the SABC back on track," said Gavin Davis.

The SABC is a state-owned company and a public broadcaster, claims minister of communications, Faith Muthambi.

The SABC is a state-owned company and a public broadcaster, South Africa's minister of communications, Faith Muthambi said on Wednesday about the beleaguered SABC which continues to rock from crisis to scandal and controversy.

Earlier this year Faith Muthambi controversially annexed the Companies Act, instead of the Broadcasting Act, to directly interfere in the SABC to get rid of at least three SABC board members, to such an extent that the gutted SABC board with an acting chairperson which originally had 12 board members, no longer has a quorum to legally constitute meetings.

Faith Muthambi also applied pressure to force the SABC board to permanently appoint the highly controversial and famously matricless Hlaudi Motsoeneng as the troubled public broadcaster's permanent chief operating officer (COO) in the middle of last year despite a damning report from the Public Protector that he be suspended and be subjected to a disciplinary hearing.

The Public Protector's report last year found that Hlaudi Motsoeneng lied, made up symbols for a matric certificate he knew he couldn't produce and that he "should never have been appointed at the SABC".

Faith Muthambi said she has the right to appoint the SABC's CEO, its COO and chief financial officer (CFO) and to suspend them.

Parliament's portfolio committee on communications earlier this week indicated that following legal opinion, it differs from her view, and will be taking steps about the minister's interference in the workings of the SABC.

On Wednesday Faith Muthambi said that the SABC is a state-owned company and a public broadcaster and that "if the Broadcasting Act does not address an issue, then the Companies Act applies. I did not say say one supersedes the other".

Minister of communications, Faith Muthambi, not concerned about e.tv's court clash over a set-top box control system for digital television.

South Africa's minister of communications, Faith Muthambi, says she is not concerned about delays to the roll-out of digital terrestrial television in South Africa which could be caused by the looming court clash between the government and e.tv over encryption control.

The country's sole free-to-air commercial TV broadcaster, Sabido's e.tv, is taking the government to court in a controversial fight over the control system for the set-top boxes (STB) needed for digital terrestrial television (DTT).

In less than a month - on 17 June 2015 - South Africa and the government will embarrassingly miss the international deadline of the International Telecommunications Unions (ITU) the government agreed to for the switch-off and conclusion of the digital migration process whereby broadcasters switch from analogue TV signals to DTT signals.

South Africa hasn't even started the commercial switch-on of DTT and "dual illumination" period which takes about four to five years to complete and no STBs, which viewers will have to buy at a cost of around R700 to R800 exist for consumers to buy.

Last month e.tv decided to take the government to court over the contentious issue of whether the government subsidised STBs should include a control system or not.

Faith Muthambi on Wednesday said the looming court clash in the Gauteng High Court to have aspects of the Broadcasting Digital Migration (BDM) policy reviewed will not delay the process of digital migration.

While the department of communications in March published a new and amended DTT policy stating that government subsidised STBs would contain a control system, e.tv says that doesn't mean that all STBs would be able to encrypt TV signals.

While Sabido's e.tv and some local decoder manufacturers are for compulsory encryption to be enabled through the STBs, MultiChoice, M-Net, the SABC, community TV stations and some manufacturers are against it. e.tv therefore went to court to change the non-mandatory inclusion of a control system.

South Africa's controversial and long-delayed switch from analogue to digital television is years behind schedule due to government bungling and delays, multiple ministers of communications who have come and gone, industry infighting over everything from broadcasting standards to decoders, delays with and the multiple reissue of DTT regulations as well as problems over everything from set-top box standards to drama around the dubious STB tender process worth billions.

Questions are meanwhile being raised over the dramatic underfunding and DTT budget shortfall, with experts asking where the money to enable the subsidising of STBs the government envisions, will be coming from.

With all these ongoing DTT issues swirling, e.tv is still adamant that it wants the STBs to have the ability to encrypt broadcast signals and wants a control system in the boxes to be made mandatory.

e.tv considers it essential to be able to encrypt its broadcast signal "primarily because this would prevent non-compliant STBs from receiving digital broadcast signals, thereby ensuring a uniform and reliable viewing experience".

e.tv says without this, it is unlikely that the broadcaster in the future will be able to offer high definition (HD) TV channels. e.tv argues in its court application that it is unlawful for Faith Muthambi to "make decisions on certain key critical technical issues that affect free-to-air broadcasters".

Carte Blanche on M-Net scoops three awards at The National Press Club's Journalist of the Year 2014 Awards.

Carte Blanche, the weekly investigative magazine show on M-Net (DStv 101), has scooped three awards at The National Press Club's Journalist of the Year 2014 Awards.

Individual Carte Blanche wins included Graham Coetzer, Sasha Schwendenwein and Susan Comrie in the TV features category; Graham Coetzer, Sasha Scwendenwein and Susan Comrie in the Journalist of the year category; and for executive producer George Mazarakis as Editor of the year.

"Carte Blanche not only maintains but exceeds expectations each year, constantly a leader in reporting for 27 years on air," says Anne Davis, M-Net's head of original productions.

"We congratulate the skilled, passionate and tireless executive producer, George Mazarakis, for his 20 years of vision and leadership, evidenced by the recent slew of awards. Carte Blanche embodies the values of M-Net programming: credible, powerful, and relevant local content."

The Oscar Pistorius trial was honoured as the Newsmaker of the Year 2014, a broadcast celebrated for its impact and news value.

 
Combined Artistic Productions, the production company responsible for Carte Blanche, last year produced The Oscar Pistorius Trial TV channel for MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV platform – a channel of which the viewership some weeks rivaled and surpassed even M-Net (DStv 101) and Mzansi Magic (DStv 161), making it the 4th most watched TV channel on pay-TV in South Africa

"Carte Blanche has been one of M-Net’s best performing productions for almost three decades now, but the fact that it continues winning such prestigious accolades is indication that the content remains relevant and engaging," says Gideon Khobane, M-Net channel director.

"It demonstrates that the programme is growing from strength to strength, meaning that despite the many primetime viewing options available, and M-Net offers award-winning content, consistent in its levels of quality and substance."

SABC's Hlaudi Motsoeneng: SABC will now only launch with 5 TV channels once digital terrestrial television (DTT) starts.

You're reading it here first. 

The SABC's chief operating officer (COO) Hlaudi Motsoeneng says the public broadcaster will now launch with only 5 TV channels once the long-delayed commercial start of South Africa switch from analogue to digital broadcasting begins - a far cry from the almost 20 TV channels the SABC promised the country just four years ago.

The controversial and famously matricless Hlaudi Motsoeneng last week at the launch of the rerun channel SABC Encore on MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV platform, confirmed that the SABC will now start its digital terrestrial television (DTT) transmissions with only 5 TV channels.

When South Africa's TV industry switches from analogue to digital broadcasting, terrestrial TV broadcasters like the SABC, e.tv and M-Net are each supposed to grow their own existing analogue channels to bouquets of multiple digital TV channels - just like DStv and StarSat - to entice TV viewers to make the switch and buy a set-top box (STB) to get access to more channels and content.   

The SABC's initial DTT offering will now however only consist out of SABC1, SABC2, SABC3 as well as the SABC News (DStv 404) and SABC Encore (DStv 156) TV channels which are already available on DStv - far from the 18 SABC TV channels the broadcaster promised parliament just a few years ago.

"We are preparing ourselves for [digital television] migration. When minister [Faith Muthambi] announce the date of migration, switching on, SABC will be ready," said Hlaudi Motsoeneng.

"We'll be having 5 channels. For the first time in the history of South Africa. But if we don't pilot these channels on that bouquet of MultiChoice, we will still have 3 channels. What will be the use of migrating if we don't have more channels?" asked Hlaudi Motsoeneng.

It echoes what Lynn Mansfield, the SABC's DTT advisor, said in March on SABC2's Morning Live, saying the SABC will start off with just 5 DTT channels.

In September 2011 SABC executives and the SABC board told parliament that the SABC's DTT offering will consist of 18 TV channels - 17 TV channels (which includes SABC1, SABC2, SABC3) and one interactive video service channel - as well as 18 SABC radio stations plus Channel Africa.

Out of the SABC's envisioned DTT plans, only SABC News and SABC Encore (originally called SABC Entertainment) materialised. 

The SABC won't launch DTT with SABC Sport, a health channel, SABC Education, an SMME and children's channel or the two regional channels, a regional north (SABC4) and regional south (SABC5) channel.

For DTT the SABC also promised parliament new services like closed captioning (on-screen subtitles) in multiple languages that can be accessed by the set top box's remote control, multiple language soundtracks with up to 4 different audio tracks per programme for certain shows, audio description to provide contextual information in programmes, as well as some interactive applications. With the down scaled DTT plans, all of these now look very unlikely to be available at launch.

According to experts, broadcasters will have to offer ordinary terrestrial viewers more with digital TV - more TV channels and services and a better viewing experience and image quality - than what they're currently receiving, in order for the millions of free-to-air TV households in South Africa to feel the need to pay R700 to R800 for a STB to  

Embarrassingly, South Africa will miss next month's global deadline of 17 June of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) the country agreed to, to fully complete the expensive DTT switch and digital migration process and which takes about five years - and when all analogue TV signals are supposed to be switched off.

With several failed dates announced by the South African government which all came and went, the country hasn't even started the commercial switch-on period which will take a few years - a period known as "dual illumination".

Under "dual illumination" the new and additional digital TV signals are supposed to be broadcast in conjunction with the existing analogue signals to give consumers and viewers time to make the TV transition.

While other African countries have already successfully completed the switch, South Africa's DTT process which will cost billions of rand has been mired in controversy for years, with ongoing embarrassing delays, in-fighting and protracted court cases.

South Africa's DTT process has largely lost sight of who it's really intended to be for and supposed to serve - the ordinary viewer who've been left out of the discussion with basically no public viewer participation.

Instead government has shifted DTT's focus to a "job creation" mechanism instead of a "viewing and content improvement" mechanism - one which has largely been hijacked by local manufacturers - themselves fractured with backstage squabbling over conflicting encryption issues and fighting for slices of the billion rand government tenders to produce digital TV boxes.  

Government inaction and ministerial bungling, multiple ill-informed communications ministers, an ill-equipped and slow-moving broadcasting regulator, the multiple re-issue of constantly changing digital broadcasting regulations and in-fighting over broadcasting standards and conditional access all contributed to the DTT derailment.

Add to it in-fighting between broadcasters, in-fighting between manufacturers over lucrative contracts, delays with manufacturing standards, in-fighting over access-control and encryption, and huge uncertainty over viewer and STB subsidies and distribution which have all contributed to the perfect, disastrous DTT storm that South Africa finds itself in.

While South Africa will miss next month's DTT switch-off date, the government has announced no new "official" switch-on date. It's also not clear how many additional TV channels e.tv and M-Net plan to launch with while both broadcasters have seen their originally allocated and available DTT spectrum systematically being reduced as the process drags on.

Today's interesting TV stories to read from TV with Thinus - 20 May 2015.

First trailer for the new drama series, The Magicians, coming in 2016.
A "grown up" version of Harry Potter with a wizarding school.

Parliament to finally act on the minister of communications' interference in the SABC.
Portfolio committee on communications will now apparently proceed and act on Faith Muthambi's alleged undue and illegal direct interference in the SABC board.

South African consumers will keep paying their expensive DStv subscriptions to keep their television ...
... before they pay their water and electricity. Poor people pay for DStv to watch SABC channels on it but can't afford to pay for electricity and water.

Does 2015 mark the beginning of the end of the pay-TV bundle?
There's several danger signs in the American pay-TV business regarding the start of a process of "unbundling" of the traditional bundled pay-TV offering.

A big backlash has started against Game of Thrones shown on M-Net Edge (DStv 102).
Horrific rape scene has viewers wondering whether the explicit fantasy drama has finally gone too far. Game of Thrones forced to go on the defensive over shocking rape scene controversy. HBO suddenly doesn't want to comment about its show. And viewers are saying they're quitting Game of Thrones.


Beleaguered SABC is a soap of its own.
It's a massive 15 months since the SABC last had a permanent CEO and 5 months since the struggling SABC had a permanent SABC board chairperson while the "shambolic state of governance" continues at the South African public broadcaster.


Kendall Jenner in a non-verbal diss of Giuliana Rancic.
The Kardashian spin-off kid blatantly rebuffs the E! Entertainment (DStv 124) red carpet mainstay in an awkward European "mwah-mwah" air kisses moment gone wrong.

The Bachelor Fantasy Suite is a sex nest.
The tawdry reality dating show has "everything you need" for "safe sex" for the contestants, brags host Chris Harrison.

A third of British TV viewers thinks there's too much sex on TV.
Study by British TV regulator finds third of TV viewers think sexually explicit material should never be shown on television - and that there's too much violence and swearing.

New local reality TV show Date my Family coming to Mzansi Magic (DStv 161) from August.
In the dating reality show, people will have impress the families of people they want to date. Very strangely, M-Net South Africa CEO Yolisa Phahle herself talks about the show.

DStv BoxOffice finally launches in Uganda.
MultiChoice's movies on demand service finally unveiled in the Africa country.

Another embarrassing SABC News live on-air blooper as the news anchor, final control room operator and cameramen all err on the side of awful.

Another week, another embarrassing SABC News (DStv 404) blooper from the public broadcaster's 24-hour TV news channel.

This time not only does the SABC News' control room staff appear to maybe be out to lunch and unable to cut to the right channel feed for play-out while the news anchor fails to keep her eye on the monitor, but a SABC cameraman also seems to be struggling to get the angle of his camera just right.

The latest SABC News snafu was was captured by a viewer and uploaded to YouTube on Sunday, and is the latest embarrassing on-air blooper on the channel as of late.

There was last month's incident where SABC News anchor Eben Jansen went ballistic and confrontational during an interview with the EFF political party spokesperson and was immediately suspended because the SABC said he will only return when he is "emotionally fit enough" to be on air.

That was followed by a dagga smoker activist earlier this month who lit up the studio - literally - and started puffing away on the SABC News' airwaves.

In the latest SABC News production mess-up, the news channel failed to stay with the pre-recorded news package reporting about lions at the Addo elephant national park and mid-way through accidentally switched back to the Your World anchor doing what appeared to be her daily gymkana workout.

That's until she realises she's actually on live television - and starts to look around perturbingly as her behaviour changes and she appears unsure and uncertain of how to behave after being caught out.

From here the SABC News control room doesn't switch back to the news package but instead cuts to the other studio camera - the one filming the front of the anchor desk.

Ironically, the story interviews a national park's game ranger who could just as well have been talking about cooped up news anchors and final editing mix and control room operators: "It's not doing them any good to be in an enclosure that small."