REVIEW. Flash! gets a fail. How the second season of Flash! on SABC3 looks amateur, unfocused and without any depth.

To use the word trash would be too compulsively easy, but the second season of Flash! on SABC3 - the channel's reboot of its local weekly entertainment magazine show that had a first season in 2009 - seems to be not sure what it really wants to be.

Or maybe the show doesn't have the resources, skills, know-how and people to deliver the quality or the intention of what SABC3 said the new Flash! would be. The dismal and disappointing result is a Flash! that seems to run on the weak flash bulb of a disposable camera, instead of the power packing wattage of the external turbo battery that paparazzi use to capture their A list subjects in a glaringly-strong strobe flash.

The second season of Flash! with the highly ineffective and ill-suited presenter Tbo Touch comes across as a hollow echo chamber of rehashed ''heard it, seen it'' entertainment news. Add to that an in-studio celebrity interview segment that creates the impression that Flash! couldn't find enough news with which to fill the half hour show that was already slimmed down from the first season's hour.

To be fair (and actually be not to other shows that get a lot less time to make an impression): TV with Thinus waited three weeks to review the show, instead of rushing to judgement, desperately wanting Flash! to improve and get better.

Sadly Flash! has now clearly shown that the remainder of the mostly tepid second season's start is basically the stale mould of what the show will be: more over-exposure for the same rehashed stars (Uyanda Mbuli ... Really? Why?), more stereotypical celebrity coverage done with below standard production values, and no innovation, surprise, excitement or a new paradigm of what Flash! could actually have been for South Africa.

Why Red Pepper Productions chose Tbo Touch as Flash! presenter echoes the lack of discernment the production seemingly has regarding the content and entertainment news, and the approach to this genre and field. Does Flash! actually really grasp and understand the fundamentals of how this all works? It seems not.

Flash! seems largely oblivious to the machinations of the local celebrity complex - not only how to navigate it succesfully, but how to make editorial and management decisions that's cutting-edge, distinct and how to create something that's different to all the rest.

If you've seen this year's movie Morning Glory you'll understand Flash!. In the movie about a struggling 4th rated American morning show it's not that they're not really trying hard to do a good show; it's that they don't know how. Sadly Flash! is the same as what you've seen on television before and done better. It's ... lame. And Tbo Touch is hands-obsessed - more animated and arm-jutting intense than an over-zealous infomercial host.

Within 3 episodes Flash! has already made changes. Gone is the iPad as if to say ''We're connected. But not that connected''. The flimsy, transparent and round perspex table (copied much from E! News?) that wobbled as much in the first episode as the content, got lifted markedly higher by the 3rd episode.

The wider angle, bluer hue backdrop has been adapted for more close-up filming and a more boxed-in look reminiscent of 80s MTV done-on-the-cheap music news shows. Also gone are the pink overlights. Following after the sleek, high gloss production values of Entertainment Tonight, Flash! looks amateur, unfocused, and without depth compared to the daily and slickly-produced V Entertainment on Vuzu (DStv 123).

In the past three episodes of Flash! on-screen titles and the little wording there is, are misspelled, from basic show names such as ''Erfsonders'' to a litany of famous names like ''Leeanne Mannas''. The production seems not at all concerned to check what it types. And who's ''Mica Stefano"? From the first episode and continuing in every episode thereafter, it's given the show an immediate credibility problem. It's downright embarrassing for an entity who wants to play and report on the local entertainment scene but can't get the basics right.

Something else Flash! don't get is the power of the Flash! microphone. It's given willy-nilly to trash that don't deserve it. Flash! flouts the basic, unwritten rule of celebrity coverage: You control the access and the coverage and you ''extend'' it to those who deserve it.

To push a Flash! microphone into various paws holding it, cheapens the recipe. It creates the impression that the show is without discernment and will put any B grade and lower fame whore on television if they will please just give Flash! a soundbyte - even if, as viewers saw - they don't even know for what show it is.

The irritating and petite-fake Flash! roving field reporter Roxy Burger, is mostly better at making nasal noises like a content walrus that finally reached the shore, rather than preparing beforehand and asking insightful questions to try and get celebrities to reveal information that the viewer don't already know.

Where she's paid her dues to do red carpet coverage is unsure but she comes across as incompetent to do so and channels an inexperienced, younger Ursula Stapelfeldt when she used to do TV1 holiday afternoon programming live from the sea shore.

The second season of Flash! gets a passing grade on two things. Firstly, the show references other TV shows and stars not on SABC3 and not on the SABC. That is wonderful and commendable. The show instantly communicates non-verbally to the viewer that the show is aware that the viewer knows more and has a wider choice of entertainment options, but that the show is willing to try and follow and serve the viewer by bringing news from all entertainment spheres.

However Flash! should drop ripping off E! segment ideas like ''Shortest Hollywood marriages'' which makes it seem as if the show isn't able to get enough local and new entertainment news. Appoint or get some real journalists to get original scoop, actually get out of the newsroom and Flash! studios and go find real news (yes. it takes hard work). 

The best bit so far (sadly seemingly a once-off): the ''Flash Fashion'' critique with the camp-du-jour Mac De Gorgeous. It was novel, it was entertaining, it was perfect for Flash! and not something done elsewhere. This could actually make for a great permanent weekly insert.

Flash! is pre-empted from the SABC3 schedule and will only be back again on 4 November (with less inane B lister coverage. Lets hope).

BREAKING. E! News anchor Giuliana Rancic planning to be back on the E! News set on Monday after her cancer surgery.

You're reading it here first.

The E! News anchor Giuliana Rancic (36) who revealed this past Monday that she has breast cancer and underwent surgery on Wednesday that included a double lumpectomy as well as the removal of some lymph nodes for testing, plans on being back on E! Entertainment's (DStv 124) E! News set on Monday.

Giuliana Rancic who dropped the bombshell news, said that she was ''going to be gone from work for a little while'' this past Tuesday. This week the former Daily 10 presenter Catt Sandler has been presenting alongside E! News co-anchor Ryan Seacrest, dutifully saying that she's ''in for Giuliana Rancic''.

Now Giuliana Rancic plans to be back on set this coming Monday, which means that she was barely gone a week - which included cancer surgery. She's currently resting at home, her mom is making pasta, and her hsuband Bill Rancic has had to grab her BlackBerry from time to time so that she could get some rest.

FIRST LOOK! Derek van Dam filming a new weather promo for the eNews Channel.

Spotted: Not on the Upper East Side but down the Lower South Side, the best weather dude in the biz, Derek van Dam of the eNews Channel (DStv 403) busy filming a new, weather-related something-something along the Cape Town coast.

Here's an idea eNews Channel: Why not commission a limited-run half hour series, called something like Whatever the Weather with Derek van Dam and have him explore in an edu-tainment kinda way some weather phenomena and things outside. Cape Town is perfect for that - weather system wise as well as scenery. A quick 13 episodes is a wonderful way to teach and tell people more about weather systems and its effects and what it all means - all those weather things you can't really pop into a weather update or have time to explain in much detail.

And Derek van Dam's presenting skills are anyway under-utilised, he'd easily be able to fit in some limited series in the same way the weather promos are being filmed.

BREAKING. Warrant of arrest issued for one former SABC employee as Special Investigative Unit (SIU) continues to uncover SABC fraud.

The Special Investigative Unit (SIU) has uncovered rampant fraud at the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) amounting to more than R200 million and a warrant of arrest has been issued for one fo the SABC's former employees - and more names are expected to be added as the SIU's investigations continue.

Two years ago the Auditor General (AG) released a damning report about the financial affairs of the SABC.

''So far we're working with the SABC; we've laid 8 charges with the Hawks already. In one of those cases an arrest warrant has been issued. With several others we expect some action soon,'' says Willie Hofmeyr, SIU. ''The total value of the contracts involved in those cases are well over R200 million.''

Programming note: Fareed Zakaria gets exclusive interview with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on CNN International.

Just in: Worth watching is on CNN International (DStv 401) Fareed Zakaria GPS this Saturday morning (tomorrow) at 04:30 (South African time) with a repeat on Sunday 23 October at 14:00 and again at 22:00 (South African time) in which Fareed Zakaria has an exclusive interview with the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran at the presidential palace.

Fareed Zakaria will interview Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the presidential palace.

Fareed Zakaria and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will discuss the death of Libya's Moammar Gadhafi, recent American accusations of an alleged Iranian assassination plot against the Saudi ambassador to the United States, the release of the American hikers from detention in Tehran, internal Iranian democracy movements, and other subjects.

BREAKING. National Consumer Commission orders MultiChoice and On Digital Media to amend their DStv and TopTV subscriber contracts.

The National Consumer Commission has told MultiChoice that runs DStv and On Digital Media (ODM) that runs the TopTV pay TV services to amend their current contracts with subscribers which the Commission says do not apply with the new Consumer Protection Act.

The National Consumer Commission also wants both South African pay TV operators to break down the channels in its bouquets and give subscriber the choice of a la carte channel subscription and has issued compliance notices to MultiChoice and ODM.

TopTV told TV with Thinus today that the operator can only comment at a later stage. ''We are engaging with the National Consumer Commission on some procedural aspects,'' said Thato Mahapa, senior manager of regulatory affairs at TopTV. ''We have not yet taken a decision or adopted a view as regards the signing of the notice or opposing it.''

MultiChoice's Jackie Rakitla, general manager for corporate affairs at MultiChoice South Africa, told TV with Thinus that ''we have received a compliance notice and we are currently considering it.''


ALSO READ: Might MultiChoice ever go a la carte with channel bouquets or do new bundled DStv bouquets? ''It is something we're watching,'' says MultiChoice.


The National Consumer Commission wants MultiChoice and ODM to allow subscribers to pay for just the specific TV channels they want, and want the DStv and TopTV channel selection to be grouped into genres.

South Africa's Consumer Act prohibits the bundling of services, but the National Consumer Commission seems confused as to how the pay TV business works. The Commission is of the opinion that South Africa's pay TV operators are ''bundling'' services, while they're in fact aggregating TV channels that would simply not be economically viable as singular streams.

More popular TV channels and content actually subsidise less popular TV channels according to the pay TV model used globally. Because of scale and the number of subscribers, operators can offer a selection of more watched and less watched TV channels to cater for a wider overall variety of programming taste.

While a so-called ''a la carte'' channel selection would theoretically be possible, it will actually cause pay TV operators to increase the individual price of popular channels, especially popular ones. For instance: While subscribers would for instance be able to subscribe to just a SuperSport or SuperSport channels on DStv or just a Fox or Fox channels on TopTV, less popular channels will completely disappear because of a lack of demand.

Because operators still have to make a profit as commercially run businesses, in all likelihood an a la carte channel offering will increase the individual price of a TV channel. Meanwhile news channels, kids channels carrying less commercial advertising, and less appealing channels that still delivering some unique content and cater to a niche audience will disappear, leading to less choice and less overall programming diversity. No DTH (direct-to-home) pay TV satellite operator in the world has the back-end technological infrastructure to organise, customise and run unique channel selection sign-ups to hundres of thousands, if not millions of individual pay TV subscribers.

Think of MultiChoice and ODM as a shop that sells bags of mixed vegetables that contain in the one bag bits of carrots, cauliflower, beans, peas and potatoe. A bag of mixed vegetables is not a bundling of services. It's not a ''bundling'' of bags; it's different bits of vegetables together as it's own product. Now imagine the shop deciding to stop selling bags of mixed vegetables and instead just separate bags of just carrots, just peas, just potatoes and just cauliflower.

More total bags of potatoes will be sold than bags of cauliflower. The shop might decide to drop carrying bags of cauliflower even though a small number of customers really like it. Cauliflower - if you can find it elsewhere - will become really expensive. And ''bundling'' would be the shop forcing you to buy a bag of carrots, when you buy just a bag of just peas, even though you don't want the bag of carrots.

Three takes on this issue:
IT World / Los Angeles Times Business / Reuters

BREAKING. MultiChoice changing the channel number of Saffron TV from November to channel 187 on DStv in the lifestyle group.

MultiChoice is changing the channel number of the Indian lifestyle channel Saffron TV from 1 November from channel 456 to channel 187.

ALSO READ: Is a channel number re-allocation and a new ''channel shuffle'' coming to MultiChoice soon as DStv is again running out of number space?

MultiChoice says Saffron TV, produced by Oche Media, will be moving to the lifestyle genre of DStv's grouped channels from the end of this month. Saffron TV has an open time timeslot on Saturdays and Sundays between 13:00 and 18:00.

''In response to the new channel location we have packaged a lifestyle schedule that will entertain a broader audience who are interested in lifestyle trends coming out of the Asian sub-continent,'' says Aleeshia Naidoo, Saffron TV channel manager.

Saffron TV is touting a set of new shows starting on the Indian lifestyle entertainment channel in November.

Some of these include Ek Khiladi Ek Haseena (current cricket heroes and Indian TV divas on the dance floor), Star Attraction (Bollywood glamour and gossip with Shalandra), Life's a Beach (Sarah-Jayne Bedford explores all and everything you can do at the water's edge), Under The Sun (Nathan LeRoy visits organic farms around the world), Olive it Up (Indian cooking show with olive oil and chef Aditya Bal), Just Desserts This Diwali (with Rochie Rana) and Yoga as Therapy (a 14 part series).

Is a channel number re-allocation and a new 'channel shuffle' coming to MultiChoice soon as DStv is again running out of number space?

Is another channel number change and re-allocation and a new ''channel shuffle'' possibly coming to MultiChoice's DStv soon?

Before I broke the news RIGHT HERE that the Studio Universal movie channel would be coming to MultiChoice's DStv channel 119 I spent countless hours late at night researching it and researching specifically the channel number it would most likely be placed at, before I approached sources for confirmation.

TV with Thinus looked at every single unique DStv channel grid, in every separate African country from Angola to Zimbabwe, overlayed on each other to find the few remaining vacant channel numbers.

Where's there's an opening on one 3 digit channel number on DStv, there's often already a channel in existence there somewhere in Africa but just not unlocked for a specific other country or countries. The only available movie channel number left in the movie block - the only possible place where Studio Universal could go for in Africa if MultiChoice wanted it to remain in the movie genre section, was channel 119.

MultiChoice is running out of available 3 digital channel numbers in the sense that the ''groupings'' of genres are filling up and that these groupings were placed close together (for instance ''movies'' are now full and have filled the entire ''gap'' until ''general entertainment'' starts with BBC Entertainment at channel 120).

The same is happening with the high definition (HD) channels. Remember that the previous channel re-allocations MultiChoice did, was to group and keep similar channels together. Now sport viewers who have access to DStv Premium have to jump from the 200's for sport to where the HD sport channels are.

Likewise M-Net HD on channel 170 and Discovery HD Showcase on channel 172 are very far away from where they would in fact belong, if you go according to the ''rule'' that M-Net HD should be next to M-Net on DStv channel 102 maybe, or Discovery HD Showcase closer to channel 121 where you can just toggle up or down. Currently all the HD channels on DStv are lumped together, irrespective of their genre.

I recently asked Aletta Alberts, MultiChoice's general manager for content whether a possible channel number re-allocation could be happening since channel 119 was the last real movie channel number left and that a next new movie channel addition will make it impossible for it to be placed in the movie channel ''section''.

''When we did the last channel shuffle we 'future proofed' it for 5 years. I think we're going into our next 5 years,'' says Aletta Alberts. ''I don't think a channel shuffle if or when it happens will be as dramatic as the last DStv channel shuffle was.''

''Remember also that at the time of the initial channel shuffle 5 years ago, HD didn't have the weight that it's starting to get now. Initially we launched it in channel spaces left over. Then subscribers complained and said 'no, please put it together'. We planned then to put the HD's after it. I think the consumer backlash was so big that we decided to close those slots. Now of course, we need them.''

''Also the technology is changing, lots of things are happening; it's a very dynamic process,'' she says. ''You'll hear about it when we are relooking at that process. That channel number, 119, was the only number that was available now.''

BREAKING. 'There's the assumption that TV audiences want local TV content, but there has to be investment in the quality of that local content.'

You're reading it here first.

''I think there's often an assumption that TV audiences want local TV content almost irrespective of what the quality of that content might be. There's this idea that somehow there's just this intrinsic demand for local content. But there has to be investment in the quality of that local content.''

So says dr Duane Varan, professor of new media at the Murdock University in America in a CNBC Africa Special Report. He was talking about local TV content within the South African and African perspective in a panel discussion in Johannesburg on the changing media landscape in South Africa.

''Local TV content depend on business models that make that local content viable,'' says dr Duane Varan. ''Advertising is important, making sure that there are TV channels for that content that actually have a following - all of that are intrinsic to making sure that the television of the future for the African continent is not foreign television that is ultimately shaping the identity of kids growing up, but that it has within it has a balance and a mix of both local and international TV content.''


ALSO READ: Local TV content in South Africa and the acquisition of TV content is going to be a challenge over the next few years, says the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa).
ALSO READ: The internet is not a ''threat'' to broadcasters in South Africa; ample time to work with telecoms to provide content, says the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa).
ALSO READ: ''Advertising on television is becoming even more important in the future - not less,'' says new media expert.