Telenovela channel EVA has added the American daytime soap, The Bold and the Beautiful, starting from 2014's 27th season.

The American soap The Bold and the Beautiful is now also on EVA (DStv 141) with episodes of the sudser playing out on weekdays at 12:00.

The channel known primarily for Latin American telenovelas is now bringing the American soap to South African and African viewers but from a point a few years back, and behind SABC3 that also carries the soap.

EVA has started The Bold and the Beautiful on 13 February from production episode 6751 that was shown in America in January 2014 as part of the 27th season, so EVA is running just over four years behind where the story currently is.

EVA says "with romance, sensuality, complex characters and intricate and compelling story lines, The Bold and the Beautiful is at its core, a gripping tale of high fashion glamour, honour and most importantly, family, that will captivate the EVA audience".

Episodes of The Bold and the Beautiful are repeated at 18:00 and 00:00 and again at 06:00 the following day. Weekend omnibuses are shown on Saturdays at 06:00 and 23:30, and on Sundays at 16:00.

Other shows currently on EVA include The Neighbour, Taxxi, Fooled into Love, Betrayed Heart and We are Family.

FOX Life adds more locally produced, female-focused programming for 2018, including Game Changers, Chick Chat Live, Dentaa Africa and Today's Leading Women.

FOX Networks Africa (FNG Africa) has added more locally-produced,female-focused programming for the FOX Life (DStv 126 / StarSat 133 / Cell C black 202) channel in Africa for later in 2018.

"We are gearing up for a busy 2018 in terms of local content production," says Levern Engel, director for content production for FNG Africa.

Game Changers will start on 16 May at 19:00. 

The series tracks the journey to stardom of some of the most influential artists on the African continent. Game Changers will profile these women through personal personal interviews, reality footage and interviews with experts and the public.

Chick Chat Live will start on 28 Mat at 19:10, followed by Dentaa Africa at 19:55.

Chick Chat Live, presented by the Nigerian talk show host Cornelia O’Dwyer, will explore female topics of interest to modern day African women.

Dentaa Africa, is described by FOX Life as "an uplifting, motivational docu-talkshow filmed across the continent with Ghana’s mompreneur, actress and TV presenter Dentaa Amoateng". She talks to well-known Ghanaian and pan-African guests over home-cooked meals. 

Today’s Leading Women will start on FOX Life on 9 July at 19:55 with presenter Buchi Lenoir, a business woman from Lagos, Nigeria. 

The series will lift the lid on female empowerment, showcasing the secrets of success of some of Africa's most creative and industrious female entrepreneurs. People profiled will include Munira Shonibare, Ifeoma Fafunwa and Joke Silva.

Indian channel Glow TV from the Nismedia Group going dark on DStv at the end of March as contract isn't renewed, Glow TV will remain on competitors StarSat and OpenView HD.

The Indian-focused channel Glow TV is going dark on MultiChoice DStv at the end of March but will remain available on competitors StarTimes Media SA's StarSat on channel 570 and on Platco Digital's OpenView HD on channel 108.

Glow TV that was started and run by Kagiso Media and that launched in October 2013, has been taken over and is now owned by the Nismedia Group that took it over in July 2016, with Urban Brew Studios helping with managing some aspects of the channel.

MultiChoice says it's contract with Glow TV is coming to an end. It's not clear why MultiChoice didn't want to renew the Glow TV contract.

Glow TV has been South Africa's first attempt at a free-to-air digital TV channel dedicated to Indian and Eastern inspired programming. The channel has been sourcing content from India, the United Kingdom, America and Brazil.

As with several channels where the programming offering of new content is too limited, Glow TV viewers have been complaining about too many repeats and too little new shows.

M-Net Movies' Lalla Hirayama doing 90th Oscars red carpet coverage, M-Net Movies Oscars: Red Carpet Special to be shown on M-Net Movies Premiere on DStv.

Lalla Hirayama and M-Net's M-Net Movies channel cluster brand will be alongside the red carpet of the 90th Academy Awards when the Oscars takes place at the Dolby Theatre on 4 March.

M-Net Movies got accreditation from The Academy of Motion Pictures and Science for a red carpet spot.

"This is quite a feat," says Lani Lombard, M-Net channels head of publicity.

"You can imagine how broadcasters around the world are trying their luck each year to be part of this prestigious event. It’s a dream come true for M-Net Movies and Lalla Hirayama and the team will be pulling out all the stops to represent our viewers and stand out from the crowd".

The M-Net Movies Oscars: Red Carpet Special with Lalla Hirayama will be broadcast on M-Net Movies Premiere (DStv 104) at 20:30 leading into The 90th Academy Awards at 21:00 on M-Net (DStv 101). 

"This has to be the highlight of my entire career," says Lalla Hirayama. "I'm so grateful to be given the opportunity to represent South Africa for the first time in Oscar history. There’s a lot of work to do leading up to 4 March but I’m ready to take it on by the horns."

"We have the most incredible team put together to ensure we deliverer the best South African content straight from the most prestigious red carpet event of the year. I hope I can make SA and M-Net Movies proud," says Lalla Hirayama.

Rich Ross out as president of Discovery Channel and Science; Kathleen Finch appointed chief lifestyle brands officer in Discovery and Scripps management restructure.

Rich Ross is out as group president of the Discovery Channel (DStv 121) and Discovery Science (StarSat 320) while Kathleen Finch, currently chief programming, content and brand officer for all 6 Scripps Networks brands, will become chief lifestyle brands officer as part of top management restructuring following Discovery Communications getting approval for its acquisition of Scripps Networks Interactive.

Kathleen Finch (right) will now have management oversight of HGTV, Food Network, TLC, ID, Travel Channel, DIY Network, Cooking Channel, Discovery Life, American Heroes Channel, Destination America, Great American Country and Lifestyle Digital Studios in the United States.

Nancy Daniels, currently TLC president, will become chief brand officer for Discovery and factual. She will lead all aspects of the Discovery Channel and Discovery Science brands that used to be what Rich Ross did.

Susanna Dinnage who has been appointed as global president of Animal Planet in late-2017 in the United States and Animal Planet worldwide, will continue in that role.

Discovery Networks International president and CEO Jean-Briac Perrette will continue is this role for the combined company.

After BamBam and Teddy A's Big Brother Naija bathroom sex tryst, the usual outrage and calls for the reality show broadcast on DStv across Africa to be banned.

Following their sex tryst in the toilet early on Tuesday morning between Oluwabamike Olawumi (BamBam) and Tope Adenibuyan (Teddy A) in the latest third season of Big Brother Naija, there's been the usual outrage from viewers and calls for the reality show broadcast across Africa on DStv to be banned.

The two housemates got passionate at around 03:00 on Tuesday morning in the reality show that is rated R18 with MultiChoice that is broadcasting Big Brother Naija on channel 198 on DStv across Africa. The third season of Big Brother Naija is produced in South Africa by Red Pepper Productions for M-Net.

The two housemates have been criticised after video and images of their sexual encounter surfaced across social media the past few days, with thousands of downloads of a file entitled "Teddy A and Bam Bam BBNaija Sex Video" on a file-sharing site.

Reno Omokri, a former aide to Nigeria's former president Goodluck Jonathan was quick to weigh in and slam the show, the contestants and Nigerians who adopt bad things from Western culture, tweeting that "When I was a child, only animals had intercourse in the open for all to see. Now I am an adult, Nigerians call people who publicly have intercourse in a toilet, stars! If they are stars, it must be very dark over Nigeria! We have a culture. Not everything from the West is good!"

The Nollywood actress, Moyo Lawal, also wanted to insert herself into the conversation, slamming BamBam for making as if she's a "good girl" but saying nothing about Teddy A who was the other half of the sex-duo, saying on her Instagram account that "So I just observed that all dem "good" girls have sex on TV while the bad girls "the ones that open body" hold themselves…Yet …Never mind !!".

Some viewers defended Big Brother Naija,like @barinyang that wrote: "Sex, Nudity, Language and Violence are why some television shows are rated 18. That doesn’t also mean that every person, 18 and above, must watch those shows."

Meanwhile the family of BamBam are denying untrue tabloid reports that they're angry with her over sex with Teddy A and that they now want her off the show.

Nigeria's Daily Post reports that in a statement BamBam's family that called it the "work of unscrupulous elements" says that "there's been false news circulating on social media about BamBam’s parents requesting for her to leave the Big Brother house to return home, this news is very false as the supposed person is not family, friend or even a supporter of BamBam. This is completely false and as such should be disregarded."

DIDN'T LAST LONG. Febe Potgieter-Gqubule quits as SABC deputy chairperson, upgrades to ANC political party's election manager.

Just a few months after being appointed as the SABC board's deputy chairperson, Febe Potgieter-Gqubule has decided to quit and upgrade to become the ANC political party's election manager.

Febe Potgieter-Gqubule will now move from Auckland Park to Luthuli House, ditching helping to repair the badly damaged South African public broadcaster to focus on party politics and to looking after the ANC's election operations ahead of South Africa's general election in 2019.

While the move to resign as SABC board member is the right thing to do,  Febe Potgieter-Gqubule's move to become ANC election manager in the first place is seen as opportunistic, given the dire straits the SABC finds itself in and the renewed instability that her departure is placing the SABC in, with an SABC board that once again sits with 3 vacant seats.

Febe Potgieter-Gqubule has been an ANC member for a long time and last last year was asked during hearings for the SABC board whether she would quit if she decides to serves in positions in other ANC structures.

The SABC in a statement says that it has received the resignation of Febe Potgieter-Gqubule.

"The ANC has now confirmed that Febe Potgieter-Gqubule has been appointed as the ANC's elections manager, and accordingly she has tendered her resignation from the SABC board which will be duly communicated to the president and the parliamentary portfolio committee".

"Febe Potgieter-Gqubule's resignation leaves the baord with 3 vacant positions; therefore the SABC will be communicating to the relevant authorities the urgency of appointing the new SABC board members to fill these vacancies".

From October the episodes of several of your TV shows are finally going to start to become longer again as NBCUniversal cuts down on time for ads in America.

O hallelu, O hallelu, the TV angels did proclaim: From October the episodes of several of your TV shows are finally going to start getting a bit longer again instead of constantly shrinking in duration, after NBCUniversal announced its finally cutting down on the TV commercial clutter to try and keep linear TV viewers from fleeing.

Although NBCUniversal is doing this for the free-to-air and pay-TV channels that it runs and programmes, and for the TV shows it owns and shows on its channels in America, the effect of longer duration episodes and shows with less TV commercials will be the same for South African viewers when those will be shown here.

NBCUniversal announced that from its new fall season in America, meaning the 4th quarter of this year, it will be reducing "ad loads" by 20% during prime time and decrease the overall time given to ads during prime time by 10%.

What it means in ordinary language is that viewers will see less TV commercials during hour long and half hour shows, and more of the actual show. There will be 20% less ads per ad break, and 10% less ads during prime time shows.

Because there will be less ads per hour and less ad time per hour, the actual episode duration of some shows will increase.

This reduction in the number of adverts, as well as the total time per hour or half hour given to TV commercials, will apply to all 50 of NBCUniversal's prime time original shows across NBCUniversal's portfolio that includes channels like E!, NBC, and shows like This is Us seen on M-Net (DStv 101) and Keeping up with the Kardashians seen on E! (DStv 124).

Because episodes of This is Us on NBC will in response to less adds become longer than the 42 minutes due to less commercial time per episode, This is Us on M-Net will be longer as well.

What it means is that M-Net by default will be forced to show less ads during This is Us since less time will be available if the show is still to fit into a hour, in the way that episodes of HBO shows like Game of Thrones, Westworld and Big Little Lies have had longer than broadcast TV runtimes.

The same will now hold true for large number more TV shows like the Kardashians on E!, and for every other TV channel in South Africa that will be showing any of NBCUniversal's programming.

Because of the American change, it will likely mean changes for DStv Media Sales that's responsible for the ad sales and for managing the available inventory and commercial time that's available during episodes of shows and played out across several DStv channels and the M-Net packaged channels on the pay-TV platform.

MSNBC (StarSat 263), the news channel available on On Digital Media and StarTimes Media SA's StarSat for example and owned by NBCUniversal, is programmed and broadcast straight from America. Yet even here viewers in America as well as in South Africa will automatically see less ads than before.

"We know that the live, linear viewing experience needs to change," says Linda Yaccarino, chairman of advertising sales and client partnerships for NBCUniversal.

Part of reducing the ads is the addition of several new types of ads that NBCUniversal will be introducing in America to ad buyers soon.

The "scripted commercial launch" for instance will see an in-show moment transitioning into a commercial. For example a character on the drama series Suits could walk into a coffee shop and grab a drink, that would lead into a commercial for that drink.

MultiChoice says 60 interested parties registered their interest to start a new South African TV news channel, tender process is now opening.

MultiChoice says over 60 interested groups have registered their interest to bid to start a new local South African TV news channel on DStv to replace ANN7 that will be removed at the end of August from Naspers' satellite pay-TV service, with the tender process that is now opening.

The new 24-hour TV news channel that will have to compete against eMedia Investments' existing eNCA (DStv 403) and the South African public broadcaster's SABC News (DStv 404) will have to be owned, managed and operated by an independent black South African owned entity.

While globally the appetite to start linear TV news channels that often take very long to turn profitable, if ever, waned over the past decade, MultiChoice wants one more local news channel for DStv.

The requirements for the new TV news channel include some tall orders. MultiChoice says it will have to be "a South African, predominantly English TV news channel that takes into account the history, diversity of cultural background, languages and socio-economic circumstances in South Africa" and will have to broadcast 24 hours per day.

It will have to provide "anchor- based, live broadcasts in the style of Al Jazeera, CNN, Sky News, eNCA, SABC News and others" and will have to "specifically focus on national, regional, local and African news, actuality, current affairs and sport with some focus on international affairs".

Besides doing news, the news channel will also have to "fcus on training and development of news and broadcast industry personnel" and "foster a strong ownership mentality with employees and partners through mechanisms such as employee equity and/or incentive schemes".

The TV news channel will be paid by MultiChoice as part of a carriage agreement to provide the content but MultiChoice says the channel will have to "be independent, non-partisan, unbiased and critical - MultiChoice will have no editorial control or ownership".

While the channel will be widely distributed across several DStv subscription tiers and packages, enabling it to get exposure to a big audience and therefore be able to run advertising, the channel will also have to work to look at getting income from other sources besides just MultiChoice.

"We're delighted and overwhelmed at the response," says Calvo Mawela, MultiChoice South Africa CEO at the over 60 interested parties who've indicated that they would like to bid to start a TV news channel on DStv.

"We're encouraged that we'll be able to offer South Africans another local news channel, which will add to the diversity and plurality of news on DStv," says Calvo Mawela.

MultiChoice is now opening the tender process and all of the 60 parties will be getting a link to respond to a Request for Proposal (ROP) on an online platform. The process will close on 30 April 2018.

MultiChoice says that after this date, the evaluation process will kick off and that the successful bidder will be notified before 31 July. People who are still interested to register their intention to bid, have until 20 April 2018 to do so and can visit multichoice.co.za.

An expensive operation

People who want to start up a new 24-hour TV news channel should do their homework and come up with the most thorough and detailed business plan they can, since specifically launching and creating a sustainable TV news channel is one of the most notoriously difficult type of channels to launch and is fraught with difficulties and challenges.

Beyond technical, editorial staff and a raft of producers, engineers and graphic artists, a TV news channel needs a studio, post production editing suites, a playout system and servers, an electronic news production system to organise stories, video link systems,  

Prior to its launch in May 2010, the DStv challenger TopTV - since rebranded as StarSat - promised a local 24-hour TV news channel, just to suddenly backtrack and can the idea when it dawned just how much it would cost and how much extensive work, labour and expertise it would require.

SABC News International, the SABC's first attempt at a 24-hour TV news channel before it was replaced by SABC News was a shocking disaster and was abruptly ended after just three years at the end of March 2010, bleeding millions of rands.

Even long-established, highly-prized, credible TV news channels are having a hard time cutting it. Sky News (DStv 402) from Sky in the United Kingdom isn't profitable and has been a loss-making TV news channel for years.

The BBC, that has decided against it, has several times until the recent past revisited whether it shouldn't end its 24-hour news channels on TV due to the exorbitant cost and turn them into digital channels.

eNCA that launched as the eNews Channel in June 2008 will be celebrating its 10th anniversary in June this year but it's been even tough going for this channel. 

Although eNCA is the most watched TV news channel on DStv with the largest news audience share, even that didn't help the channel to make enough money to sustain the type of news and coverage, especially of and from the rest of Africa it did for a while. The channel, although successful, has gone through several painful cost-cutting exercises that saw it shed staffers, shutter its international bureaus and cancel multiple news and actuality programmes. 

The new TV news channel will also have to know that it will be entering a very crowded field of established players in terms of TV news providers who are not going to budge for a newbie.