M-Net on The Voice South Africa live finale voting scandal: 'We're not exactly sure what went wrong tonight'; blames platform collapse on show's massive success.

M-Net went down for the count on Sunday night when a total voting collapse of its online system marred the live finale of The Voice South Africa in which Richard Stirton was announced the winner and plunged the pay-TV broadcaster and the show into yet another voting scandal with none of the votes made by actual viewers on Sunday that were counted to determine a winner.

M-Net says it doesn't know what went wrong and why the voting system collapsed and that M-Net doesn't know who voted for who on Sunday night: the voting failure due to an avalance of votes is because The Voice South Africa is a victim of its own success.

The result is that viewers didn't chose the winner of The Voice SA on Sunday during the live finale of the reality singing competition as M-Net promised would happen, with only the votes made until the end of Thursday used to determine Richard Stirton as the winner.

Viewers whose data and votes were wasted on Sunday are furious over the The Voice SA voting failure that's highly embarrassing for M-Net and African Media & Production Network (AMPN) that produced the show in conjunction with the international format right holder Talpa international.

The Voice SA's voting collapse comes just two weeks after the show also suffered a voting glitch it blamed on Vodacom, when 8 000 SMS votes were delivered late and forced the show to have 13 instead of 12 contestants after M-Net and auditors Deloitte & Touche said that the "lost" votes could have changed the outcome regarding which contestant got sent home.

Sunday's The Voice SA voting system implosion is the second big voting scandal that's engulfed M-Net. In 2009 M-Net was mired in a viewers' voting scandal when Sasha-Lee Davids was announced as the winner of the 5th season of Idols although Jason Hartman was the real winner with 200 000 more votes that were not counted in time.

Technical voting problems also impacted Idols and the contestants in 2002, and again in the 10th season in 2014.

On Sunday night presenter Lungile Radu suddenly told viewers briefly that no votes made on Sunday will count anymore because of "intermittent" voting platform issues - something that wasn't explained and viewers didn't understand.

Yolisa Phahle, M-Net CEO who attended the live finale, left her seat during the show and didn't return - presumably called to be informed of the unfolding voting crisis.

After the conclusion of Sunday's live finale, no M-Net production executives, M-Net channel head or executive producer were part of the tabled panel for the press conference of The Voice SA as is usual and expected, and has been the case for all M-Net channels' reality competition shows the past few years like Idols, Power Couple SA, MasterChef SA and Survivor SA.

Yolisa Phahle who did appear but stood on the sidelines of the press conference and didn't take any official questions from the press corps on Sunday night.

"Basically The Voice South Africa broke the internet on Sunday night," said Lani Lombard, M-Net's head of publicity, who said M-Net isn't sure of exactly what went wrong and why.

"There was a massive number of votes coming through on our voting platforms and as a result of that - as you know we are a responsible broadcaster - we are always very transparent what is going on in our voting platforms - and we work with our auditors as well, to make sure that the results are fair."

"Because of this we decided to go back to what the results were at the close of voting lines on Thursday night. And that is as per the terms and conditions. So if you go into the terms and conditions, it clearly says that if there are any technical issues, that we will go back to the previous votes."

"Just to make sure that you are absolutely clear about this: Tonight's votes would have been added to this week's votes."

TVwithThinus asked what exactly went wrong and what M-Net and the production did after the voting failure a few weeks ago to pro-actively prevent and if the pay-TV broadcaster shouldn't have enlarged capacity if contestants' songs started breaking online records on iTunes.

"All the issues we've had up until now were on the SMS platform. So that was the reason why we didn't do that as well [SMS voting] on Sunday because we know that the volumes can create a problem. We did test our capacity and quite a lot as well."

"We tested the voting volumes up until 36 000 votes per seconds. We're not exactly sure what went wrong tonight. It was some kind of a technical error somewhere. But we did have tests to make sure that it wouldn't happen. But despite that, it still did."

TVwithThinus asked when on Sunday M-Net and AMPN noticed that there were voting irregularities.

"It happened very soon; literally seconds, minutes after the voting lines opened. Some people did have access to the voting platforms, and others didn't have access," said Lani Lombard.

"People started posting comments on social media, so immediately we started investigating that. There are also backups, so we reverted to the backups to see if we could get it going again but it was too intermittent."

"So because we are a responsible broadcaster and because we're always transparent, we went with the fair option not to make the votes count".

"This is the fairest decision because you don't know how many people voted for who. So it makes it very difficult to make a decision based on guessing work. The best possible thing was to revert back to the roll-over votes made until Thursday."

"It would be impossible to say how many votes went to the other contestants as well. I do think that we saw this week as well that Richard was number one on iTunes, he was extremely popular throughout the competition, and we could just have guessed how the voting would have gone tonight but it probably would have been very similar."

"We would have wanted all of the voting platforms to have worked 100%, so that is unfortunately how it happened," said Lani Lombard.

M-Net said it will release the voting data of votes cast until Thursday later.

ANN7 on DStv in its latest embarrassing on-air gaffe calls Fort Hare university 'Fart Hare' as viewers weigh in about DStv's 'comedy channel'.

The never-ending on-air embarrassment produced by the struggling ANN7 (DStv 405) made South Africans laugh on Friday when the Gupta-owned TV news channel on MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV platform kept showing viewers "Fart Hare" instead of the Fort Hare University.

It's the latest highly embarrassing on-air gaffe from the mistake-riddled DStv channel from Infinity Media that's infamous for its disastrous launch and embarrassing mistakes like "reports suggest plane was shot dead".

On Friday ANN7 treated DStv subscribers with the University of "Fart Hare" where president Jacob Zuma and Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe were set to appear to mark the embattled tertiary institution's centenary that's been marred by violence and vandalism the past few days.

South African social media users had a ball at ANN7's expense with Chris Snelling saying that ANN7 should be moved "out of news section of DStv and relocated to comedy channels".

"Fartoo many mistakes," said Charles Leonard, while Kenichi Serino said, "Yes, ANN7 has been running a chyron all morning calling the alma mater of Mandela and Robert Mugabe: "Fart Hare"."

"One would have expected ANN7 to have outgrown their startup teething problems! No such luck!" said Lex Middelberg.

"No man, DStv, why do you all let people do this? Fix this," said Sixo.

Earlier this month news surfaced that MultiChoice is reportedly ready to cut ANN7 from DStv in August when the existing contract with Infinity Media runs out due to ongoing complaints from DStv subscribers regarding anchor changes, an inconsistent programming schedule that constantly changes and ongoing widespread on-air mistakes.

MultiChoice told TVwithThinus that reports that MultiChoice is "considering pulling the plug" on ANN7 is "untrue and incorrect".

ANN7 struggles with ongoing dismal viewership on DStv with its viewership that fell in 2016.

According to viewership research by AGB Nielsen Media Research, ANN7 in March 2016 only had a paltry viewership share of 8.83% among MultiChoice's range of news channels on DStv.

That is off from the 10.66% share it had in February 2016 and down from its 10.15% share in March last year.

ANN7 also keeps making headlines for all the wrong reasons for ongoing personnel drama behind the scenes and frequent anchor resignations and abrupt on-air changes.

TV producer Basetsana Kumalo set to sue DRUM magazine after judge denies urgent interdict to prevent magazine from publishing cover story about alleged 'botched liposuction'.

TV producer and South African media mogul Basetsana Kumalo is set to sue DRUM magazine after failing to secure an urgent court interdict to prevent the weekly magazine from publishing an image of one of her children and a story in the latest issue on sale from today alleging that she underwent "botched liposuction".

Basetsana Kumalo, the producer whiz behind shows like Top Billing on SABC3, Pasella on SABC2 and Our Perfect Wedding, Diski Divas and Date My Family on Mzansi Magic (DStv 161) went to court just past midnight this morning to prevent DRUM from publishing images of her son Nathi in a story about her alleged "botched liposuction".

Basetsana Kumalo, a former Miss South Africa popularly known as Bassie, slammed DRUM's story as "defamatory, untrue and malicious". DRUM magazine says it "stand by the cover story".

Basetsana Kumalo and her husband Romeo went to court to try and obtain an urgent court interdict to stop the publication of the article about her alleged medical procedure.

Besides surgery on her recent ankle injury, DRUM reports that she underwent cosmetic surgery as well in a story headlined "Bassie's health scare", saying "Media mogul dices with death, liposuction gone wrong?, internal bleeding".

DRUM says it has "exclusively learned that Basetsana is in a private Johannesburg hospital allegedly for liposuction gone wrong".

Judge Denise Fisher refrained from granting the urgent interdict in the South Gauteng High Court since the image of Nathi was already posted online. Basetsana Kumalo will now launch civil proceedings to sue DRUM for defamation.

"Sadly I couldn't get an urgent interdict on the lies on the lead story that I had 'botched liposuction' as the judge says the horse has bolted and the magazine is already on shelf in Cape Town," says Basetsana Kumalo.

DRUM editor Thandi Mthethwa says the magazine stands by the reporting in the cover story of its latest issue on sale now.

PLANE SILLY? Another airplane goes missing ... so of course CNN International on DStv goes plane crazy with hours of inanely bad, missing Flight MS804 coverage.

When EgyptAir flight MS804 went missing over the Mediterranean Sea on Thursday something else went missing: coverage of other international news, sport and business news coverage on CNN International (DStv 401).

While there's nothing wrong with covering a missing airplane, it becomes problematic when a TV news channel like CNN International starts to cover one story - almost exclusively - for so long and to the exclusion of other important news.

The CNN International feed switched to the CNN version seen in the United States that basically played like a real-time, live version of a National Geographic Channel Air Crash Investigation episode scenario-ed out.

Even Christiane Amanpour got into the act with an Amanpour devoted to the missing plane (interview details which were refuted and backtracked by the Egyptian government two hours later - basically a missing and wasted half hour of my life that I will never get back.)

After a short Hillary Clinton interview (also taken from CNN in America) that unprofessionally ran over and was abruptly cut short, viewers were then once again returned to missing plane speculation coverage.

While other channels like Sky News (DStv 402) also covered the missing EgyptAir flight MS804, they didn't do so for literally hours at the cost of dropping other news and they balanced it with the day's "normal" offering of various other news events.

it felt as if CNN International (and by implication CNN in America which is basically what CNN International became) unlike the other TV news channels somehow lost all perspective and turned into the "missing airplane channel".

Why does CNN International believe that global viewers want to see so much - and unconfirmed, unending speculation - around one missing plane story?

And who is it who makes this decision? Because it's definitely somewhere, somebody specific, who decided to dump other coverage of other news at the expense of this one specific story.

I love watching television, especially TV news, and tracking various TV channels and what's on them. You really have to go low to bore me to the point where I can't watch a TV channel and not find something that I see and wonder about or that keeps my interest.

However, by the time I feel I cannot keep watching anymore and must change to another channel because of the soul-deadening and repetitive lack of anything new or worthwhile, then it's bad - and that's what happened on Thursday with CNN International's missing EgyptAir flight coverage.

One thing I'm thankful for and that international viewers of CNN can be grateful for however is that CNN International is actually a way better, more balanced, and more nuanced channel than the CNN that American viewers are clearly being "subjected" to.

You don't realise that until you're suddenly forced to watch for hours the speculative chatter and almost pseudo-hype news, bad closed-ended questions ("yes/no" questions) and mindless, bad "experts" that's apparently the CNN version of the United States.

I feel bad for people (in America) who think they're watching news but have to make do with something like The Lead with Jake Tapper that CNN International viewers are occasionally exposed to as happened again on Thursday.

My take-away today was that the CNN version in America has a lot less substance and is filled with a lot more "posturing" - imagine a lot more Wolf-type coverage than International Desk type news.

Does CNN want to condition global viewers than when something happens to an airplane that it's now the de facto "missing / downed / crashed airplane channel"? Who knows?

All I know from watching on Thursday is that what was on CNN International with the missing EgyptAir MS804 was too much.

CNN also had too much of too little: too little information constantly regurgitated, too few actual facts, too much bad CNN America, too much "if's" and "may's" and "likely's" and too many garish red "breaking news" bumper break-in's for trivia titbits what wasn't nearly "breaking news" at all.

Loss-making SABC to increase royalty tariff paid to South African artists for needletime on its radio stations and TV channels from 3.2% to 4%.

The loss-making SABC on Thursday announced that the South African public broadcaster will increase the royalty tariff paid to artists for music content played on the SABC's 18 radio stations and TV channels from 3.2% to 4%.

The announcement of an increase in pay-outs is great news for local established and new South African musicians who will benefit from a bigger payout every time their music is played on public South African airwaves.


The news comes on the back of the SABC's recent decree by its chief operating officer (COO) Hlaudi Motsoeneng of a 90% local music content quota across all 18 of its radio stations that was widely welcomed by South African artists.

The royalty tariff will increase from 3.2% to 4% for artists registered with the Southern African Music Rights Organisation (SAMRO), South African Music Performance Rights Association (SAPRA), Independent Music Performance Rights Association (IMPRA) and the Association of Independent Record Companies (ARIC).

Still problematic however is that besides these four organisations, there's a lot of South African artists who are not registered with any of these bodies.

Also still troubling, is that many South African artists are still waiting on millions of rands in royalty back payments that's not been made.

South African artists also complain about problems regarding effective monitoring and reporting of needletime (which in turn negatively impacts on subsequent payouts).

The increased royalty tariff means more money for South African musicians' pocket but also more money that will have to be paid by the SABC.

The public broadcaster made a loss of R395 million in its latest reported financial year, and recently dramatically announced that it wants to start four new "language-based" TV channels, each of which will cost around R500 million to set up and operate.

Hlaudi Motsoeneng said the SABC is going to pay R1 billion to especially new and emerging local TV producers to create TV content for these channels but didn't specify where the astronomical amount of money is coming from.

"This move [to increase the royalty tariff] is meant to stimulate the music industry, through creating jobs and unearthing new talent. The SABC also wants to restore the dignity of creatives to move away from a situation of creatives in the music industry dying as paupers," says Hlaudi Motsoeneng.

"We're thrilled as SAMPRA by the bold decision taken by the SABC to beat the 3% rate set by the courts and up it to 4%," says Sean Watson, SAMPRA chairperson.

"We are very excited and looking forward to artists' lives changing. We have waited for 30 years for this," says Arthur Mafokate, SAMRO representative.

"On behalf of IMPRA and AIRCO, we are embracing and remain committed and grateful of the announcement from the SABC about 4% needle time payments to us as record companies," says Dodo Monamedi, chairperson of AIRCO and IMPRA.

Besides the increased payout the SABC is also setting money aside to pay a once-off honorarium in July to local South African musicians like Babsy Mlangeni, Steve Kekana and Letta Mbuli.

Samsung South Africa launches Samsung's new range of ultra-high definition (SUHD) TV's; swimmer Cameron van der Burgh its new brand ambassador.

Despite a stalling South African economy and falling disposable income from South African consumers, Samsung South Africa on Thursday evening held a small media launch in Kramerville for its new range of ultra-high definition (SUHD) TV sets.

Pre-orders for Samsung's new SUHD TV's that has gone bezel-less - and with quantum dot display that results in better high pixel density - start on Friday.

A few hundred people who buy a new 8-series SUHD TV before 26 June will get a Samsung Galaxy S7 smartphone with it.

Samsung South Africa will now be selling and has a recommended retail price for the 65-inch KS9500 SUHD Curved TV (UA65KS9500) of R64,999, 65-inch KS8500 SUHD Curved TV (UA65KS8500) for R54,999 and the 55-inch KS8500 SUHD Curved TV (UA55KS8500) for R32,999.

The new range of SUHD TV's come with one remote that can be programmed to control anything from a DStv decoder to Microsoft XBox.

"Our new SUHD TV's represent our singular focus on innovation that matters most to consumers, by providing the very best picture quality for the home," says Matthew Thackrah, the deputy managing director and head of consumer electronics at Samsung South Africa.

Samsung South Africa that has already produced and distributed 3.2 million TV sets within the South African market, announced swimmer Cameron van der Burgh as its new TV brand ambassador who attended Samsung's local SUHD media launch.

The Samsung SUHD launch event comes on the same day that Bloomberg reported that Samsung has had discussions with entertainment companies about launching its own multi-channel over-the-top TV service.

Samsung asked companies how much they would charge Samsung to carry their TV channels in a bundle over the internet and straight to viewers through Samsung's internet-connected TV sets. In South Africa Samsung for instance already carries services like the ShowMax app from Naspers.

"Our approach is to continue to develop strategic collaborations with content partners rather than compete with them," Samsung said in a statement.

M-Net and MultiChoice adding new film pop-up channel, M-Net Movies Blackout, for the month of June to DStv with 170 movies focusing on black Hollywood stars.

M-Net and MultiChoice is adding a new film pop-up channel, M-Net Movies Blackout to DStv for the month of June for DStv Premium subscribers that will focus on black Hollywood stars.

M-Net Movies Blackout is the first of two pop-up channels that M-Net Movies will be running on DStv in the current financial year.

M-Net Movies Blackout will start on 3 June and run until midnight on Thursday, 30 June on DStv channel 109 for DStv Premium subscribers in South Africa and across Africa.

M-Net Movies Blackout will broadcast for 18 hours per day and show 170 films that include black American actors like Will Smith, Whoopi Goldberg, Kevin Hart, Tyler Perry, Wesley Snipes, Viola Davis, Morris Chestnut, Martin Lawrence, Mia Long, Vivica A. Fox and Zoe Saldana.

Some of the films that will be shown on M-Net Movies Blackout include Wild Wild West, Diary of a Mad Black Woman, Bad Boys 2, Madea’s Witness Protection, Get Hard, Fast & Furious 7, The Wedding Ringer and Ride Along. 

On Youth Day on 16 June, M-Net Movies Blackout will show local South African films with black stars that will include Jerusalema, Black Nativity, City of Violence, Jozi, Trevor Noah's comedy stand-up special Trevor Noah It’s My Culture and a first-run stand-up special, #VernacAttack. 

M-Net says it's "putting an exciting, positive spin on the word 'blackout'. Instead of reaching for a torch, or lighting some candles, the word will inspire MultiChoice's DStv Premium customers to check-in at channel 109".

M-Net Movies Blackout will celebrate the contribution of black American actors in Hollywood and comes in the year that saw The Academy Awards being criticised for its lack of diversity in Oscars nominations in a "Oscars So White" campaign.

"Pop-up channels are currently all the rage worldwide and by creating these channels, it grants us an opportunity to curate available content for the enjoyment of viewers with different tastes," says Jan du Plessis, the director for M-Net channels.

"While movies with phenomenal African American talent are often scattered across our various channels, this will be the first time you’ll find them all on one channel".

Some of the films will also be made available on MultiChoice's DStv Catch Up service.

The SABC as a public broadcaster has spent R733 930 in the past 2 years on buying the Gupta family's The New Age newspaper, 3 times as much as in 2011.

The SABC has spent R733 930 in just the past 2 years on buying copies of The New Age newspaper - SABC TV licence payers' money spent by the SABC, that's a public broadcaster, to buy print newspapers.

According the the minister of communications, Faith Muthambi, "the SABC had concluded contracts with The New Age for newspaper subscriptions at a cost of R733 930 since May 2014 to date".

Faith Muthambi's response was to a parliamentary question from the Democratic Alliance (DA) political party.

"This amounts to a tripling in the SABC's financial support of The New Age from R238 356.52 in 2011‚" said the DA's Phumzile van Damme.

"It is deplorable that the SABC has completely disregarded the finance minister's calls for austerity in order to financially anchor a newspaper with paltry readership, owned by the friends of president Jacob Zuma," says Phumzile van Damme  in a statement.

"I will be urging Faith Muthambi to instruct the SABC COO, Hlaudi Motsoeneng, to withdraw any active subscriptions with The New Age."

"The SABC's funds should be focused on growing the national broadcasters capacity and providing viewers with quality programming and not endless repeats."

"The gross extent of state capture by the Gupta's is robbing our economy of alleviating poverty and unemployment in our economy."

"We will continue to fight to hold those responsible for wasteful spending at the SABC accountable. The people of South Africa need a national broadcaster that does not only serve the ANC cabal but all communities in our country," Phumzile van Damme  said. 

The New Age newspaper is owned by the controversial Gupta family and the SABC broadcasts The New Age breakfast briefings on SABC2's Morning Live in a TNA Media trade deal.

The SABC broadcasts the breakfast briefings and says it gets content, while TNA Media has to pay for and organise the catering and venue and find sponsors.

Katlegoe Maboe and Minnie Dlamini to present E! red carpet special from the South African Music Awards; will E! in its 2nd local try-out come to play ... or push?

Katlegoe Maboe and Minnie Dlamini will be the presenters for E! Entertainment's (DStv 124) second South African red carpet TV special, this time covering the upcoming 2016 South African Music Awards (Samas) on 4 June in Durban.

Meanwhile insiders are wondering whether E!'s next upcoming red carpet initiative in South Africa is going to be the same want-to-take-over and pushy behind-the-scenes bitch fest that was observed a few weeks ago.

The channel from NBCUniversal International Networks available on MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV platform in South Africa and across Africa recently did its very first local red carpet coverage from its end of the carpet corner at the 10th South African Film and Television Awards in Johannesburg on 20 March.

Interestingly, TV critics, media and the usual "fashion police" press who were present behind the red rope, in the trenches with E!, and mostly used to everything, couldn't help but stare.

While Idols judge Somizi Mhlongo and entertainment reporter Nadia Neophytou were the Saftas' two official red carpet presenters from a modest square podium midway alongside the red carpet, E! basically looked as if it tried to take over with a massive head-end section hogging the end point and annexing the entrance where Bonang Matheba and Maps Maponyane were the E! Beyond the Red Carpet: Saftas presenters.

The visibly stressed and pushy behind-the scenes E! crew were observed being very rude and verbally aggressive (some complete with British accent) to several people on the red carpet and other members of the South African press situated alongside the red carpet as celebrities, TV executives and media made their way to the entrance.

E!'s OCD behaviour in and around its demarcated red carpet pen was in stark contrast to the other press and TV channels like the SABC, SABC News, ANN7, e.tv and others that also covered the event and exhibited the usual level and moments of friendly banter and helpful fraternising although they're competitors.

Ironically, the rude E! behaviour happened while the official Saftas presenters Somizi Mhlongo and Nadia Neophytou and crew actually had more stress since they were covering the Saftas as a recorded and delayed-live broadcast on SABC2.

The NBCUniversal International Networks production was recorded for playout not live but only for two days later on E! Entertainment. E! had the luxury of being able to edit - the official pre-show not so much.

Observers remarked that the overt aggressiveness and producers literally seen pushing people out of the way on the red carpet trying to "ensure" better side and background shots was probably because it was E!'s first time doing a South African red carpet and wanting to "quality control" as many aspects for the final visuals as possible.

South African press will now watch E! to see whether it comes to play or push again when Minnie Dlamini and Katlegoe Maboe present E!: Beyond the Red Carpet: SAMAs.

E!: Beyond the Red Carpet: SAMAs will be recorded on Saturday 4 June at the Durban International Convention Centre and will be broadcast 3 days later on E! Entertainment on 7 June at 20:00.

E! calls it an "exclusive red carpet ride" although its highly unlikely that the NBCUniversal International Networks channel will be the only actual TV channel there for red carpet coverage since red carpet visuals of the SAMAs the past few years have annually been shown on several South African channels.

E! says E! Beyond the Red Carpet: SAMAs will "take viewers into the heart of the red carpet action and beyond" with fans that can "look forward to fun interviews with South Africa's hottest A-listers and the rising stars of the local music scene, plus an exclusive sneak peek behind the scenes of this hotly anticipated awards ceremony".