Da Vinci's Demons going to Peru and Machu Picchu in South America in the second season starting in April on FOX in South Africa.

The second season of drama Da Vinci's Demons will start in April in South Africa on FOX (DStv 125 / StarSat 130) soon after the season starts on 22 March in the United States, although FOX International Channels Africa (FIC Africa) can't provide an exact starting date yet.

In the second season of Da Vinci's Demons with Tom Riley as Leonardo da Vinci, the show will see the character visit Peru and Machu Picchu while the Incas were at the height of their civilization in South America (albeit recreated on a Swansea sound stage).

New Da Vinci inventions viewers will see include a submarine.

Tom Riley told FOX International Channels that "we've got some really good, exciting new people coming to shake things up. And the characters that already exist are all going to be thrown together in strange combinations anyway, so you're going to see people interacting who you haven't seen interacting before".

"We spent a lot of time in the New World, so we have recreated a one of the hottest countries in the world in one of the coldest. So we had to spend quite a lot of time in very little clothes looking like we were sweaty and hot and trying to hide our cold breath. So that was pretty challenging this season," said Tom Riley.

"The show splits in the second season. We see the characters in various different geographical locations, different emotional locations, and Lucrezia is sort of the glue that holds it all together".

Biola Alabi at M-Net Africa undergoes job change; now M-Net Africa's managing director just focusing on special projects.

There was no public announcement but Biola Alabi, previously the managing director of M-Net Africa for five years, has now had a job title and responsibilities change and is now the managing director for special projects in Africa at the pay-TV broadcaster.

Biola Alabi's title and job description change came into effect from the beginning of last month due to personal choices.

According to M-Net, Biola Alabi who joined M-Net in 2008, will now focus exclusively on productions such as Big Brother Africa which has already seen four seasons and the AfricaMagic Viewers' Choice Awards. 

In her new job title Biola Alabi is also working on the AfricaMagic Original Films project to help develop African film and television.

Biola Alabi's new portfolio comes amidst the appointments of Wangi Mba-Uzoukwu as M-Net's first ever regional director for West Africa and Michael Ndetei as M-Net's first ever regional director for East Africa who will both take up these positions from 1 March.

The SABC now looking for one schedule manager across SABC1, SABC2 and SABC3.

The SABC is now looking for one schedule manager - a person who will have to have a higher qualification that the SABC's matricless acting chief operating officer (COO) Hlaudi Motsoeneng, and who will have to bring order and "alignment" to the SABC's three general entertainment TV channels which have fallen into serious disarray the past few years.

The new one schedule manager across all three TV channels, will have to have a relevant degree or diploma.The new SABC TV schedule manager will have to work at creating "optimally complimentary" programming schedules for SABC1, SABC2 and SABC3.

The three channels' schedules have seen growing overlap, redundancy and monotonous transversal repeats the past few years, where the channels are becoming more and more indistinguishable from each other - The Cosby Show on SABC3 would be on SABC1, every channel repeats each other channel's soaps, and all the movies on a channel like SABC3 would repeat on SABC1, breaking down the semblance of a unique character or channel proposition for each of the channels.

The new overall schedule manager will have to "ensure a commercially viable schedule for the channels" and compile the schedules in alignment with what each channel's target audience is supposed to be - something which has become watered down at the SABC over the past half a decade.

The new scheduling manager will have to "monitor audience patterns and their competitive environment to plan and develop schedules that willoptimise the channels' competitive stance and increase audience share and revenue" for the SABC.

It will also be this person's responsibility to ensure that the scheduling and broadcasting schedule and programme acceptance departments function productively and effectively - no placing of shows on the schedule if "the tapes haven't yet arrived because the SABC didn't sign the contract in time or lost the contract".

Do you use every single thing at the gym every single time and for the same duration? Why you should stop complaining about your TV channels.

Joe Marchese over at MediaPost is also explaining why you don't want you pay-TV provider to be forced to give you only the TV channels you want, and is putting the economics of scale into perspective in terms of what is at work with the product and service.

"Why You Should Shut Up and Love Your Cable Bundle" explains, using a gym and gym equipment analogy, why DStv subscribers who are outraged about getting The Home Channel when all you want is your horse races on the SuperSport 4 channel from MultiChoice, should think a bit about what they're really asking and what the consequences will be.

I've maintained, and still believe, that consumers and pay-TV subscribers clamoring for "let me choose the TV channels I want" should be careful what they wish for - they will end up ironically paying more for less TV content, instead of getting a cheaper deal which isn't really even possible.

Read this article, read other articles, read widely, study and really educate yourself about the econometrics of subscription television.

Read about how and where the content originates from, how the TV content generation, content flow and distribution works and how its interlinked and how it is possible for a pay-TV operator to bring you multiple pay-TV channels in the first place because of a business model.

Some pay TV-subscribers insist on wanting to "break" the business model. My belief is that they will do so at their own peril.

Whose side am I on as a journalist and a TV critic? MultiChoice's side? On Digital Media (ODM) and StarTimes' side?

I'm on the ordinary consumer and pay-TV subscriber's side - the consumer who rightly or wrongly thinks he or she is paying too much for pay-TV and naturally thinks it will be cheaper to select and pay for just the channels he or she wants.

Counter-intuitively, the irony is that people who ask to do that, will end up paying more, not less for the privilege of selecting only individual TV channels (if that content separation should ever happen or be possible), and that is not in the best interest of the basic consumer and TV viewer.

M-Net does away with the 'HD' in its M-Net on-screen channel ident on MultiChoice's DStv platform, no reason given.

M-Net quietly dumped the "HD" from the M-Net on-screen logo on channel 101 on MultiChoice's DStv platform on Friday without giving a reason, although the channel remains a high definition (HD) channel.

The "M HD" has made way for just the stylistically used blue-ribbon device "M" on-screen, without the silver "HD" letters at the end.

There's been no explanation from M-Net as to the reason behind the quiet M-Net channel ident change; a media enquiry was made late on Friday.

The M-Net channel 101 adopted the M-Net HD logo from October 2012 when the M-Net HD channel which was a separate channel on DStv with slightly differentiated content, fell away and the standard definition (SD) M-Net channel became able to carry the full HD content in terms of ads, filler and its programming content.

BREAKING. Bob van Dijk takes over as new CEO of Naspers; Koos Bekker becoming Naspers chairman from April 2015.

Bob van Dijk (41) is becoming the new Naspers CEO from 1 April 2014 with current CEO Koos Bekker (61) who will take a year off and then become the new Naspers chairperson from 1 April 2015 when Ton Vosloo steps down.

Naspers owns the massive pay-TV operation encompassing direct-to-home (DTH) pay-TV satellite business MultiChoice in South and Southern Africa with brands like DStv, M-Net, SuperSport and the digital terrestrial television service GOtv in Southern Africa.

In 1985 Koos Bekker, following a paper he wrote at Columbia University started M-Net in his early thirties with a group of people, one if the first pay-TV services outside of the United States. At the times Naspers was a 26% backer and Ton Vosloo the M-Net chairperson.

Today the group operates pay-TV services and products across 48 countries in Africa and is available in 7 million households.

In 1997 Koos Bekker replaced Ton Vosloo as CEO of Naspers. Naspers today is the largest media group outside the United States and China and is larger than any in Europe.

AVIAN BLUE. An eagle swoops and attacks eNCA's East Africa bureau chief, Robyn Kriel, in Kenya, thinking she is a fish.

eNCA's East Africa bureau chief Robyn Kriel got quite a fright this week when an eagle swooped in and attacked her - probably thinking she's a fish - just as Robyn Kriel stood ready to deliver her piece to camera.

In Kisumu, Kenya, a startled Robyn Kriel then unleashed, hilariously, an expletive laced, choice few words which would never make it to television, after the bird swooped down behind her and tried to grab her head.

Robyn Kriel was filming at a fish market on the shores of Lake Victoria according to eNCA, when the eagle dove down and ruffled some hair, if not feathers.

A funny clip of Robyn Kriel's unexpected eagle encounter can be watched here.

Al Jazeera calling for a Global Day of Action next week, Thursday 27 February, because 'journalism is not a crime'.

Al Jazeera (DStv 406 / StarSat 401) is calling for a global day of action next week on Thursday 27 February in support of press freedom and the release of its three journalists - Mohamed Fahmy, Peter Greste and Baher Mohamed - jailed and remaining locked up in Egypt for doing their job.

Al Anstey, Al Jazeera English's managing director says the Qatar based 24-hour TV news channel is "deeply disappointed" that the three journalists have not been released and remain in jail.

The court case against the three journalists has been postponed to 5 March after they pleaded not guilty to all charges against them. 

Al Jazeera has received global support from all the major global TV news operations, demanding that the journalists be released.

"The charges against our staff are baseless, unacceptable, and wholly unjustified," says Al Anstey in a statement.

"What is going in in in Egypt right now is a trial of journalism itself, so it is critical that we remain resolute in calling for freedom of speech, for the right for people to know, and for the immediate release of all of Al Jazeera's journalists in detention in Egypt".

"We truly appreciate the solidarity from journalists and individuals right around the world. The pressure has continued to build since they were taken into custody. We must keep this up, so we ask everyone to contribute to the Global Day of Action on Thursday 27th February. Journalism is not a crime."

BREAKING. SABC blasts Mail & Guardian article 'Hlaudi is here to stay'; says Thursday's statement is the only official comment from the SABC.

The SABC just put out a statement at 17:18 saying that a Mail & Guardian story out today by journalist Glynnis Underhill headlined "Hlaudi is here to stay" is not true and that the SABC's only official response on the matter regarding its matricless acting chief operating officer (COO) Hlaudi Motsoeneng is the statement the SABC released yesterday.

The SABC says Thursday's statement is "the only official comment from the SABC board until further communique".

The SABC says the SABC chairperson Zandile Tshabala refutes the article in Friday's Mail & Guardian newspaper and the front page headline entitled "Hlaudi is here to stay".

"The article by Glynnis Underhill twisted statements made by the SABC chairperson around the issue, with the aim of painting a picture that the SABC chairperson is undermining the report released by the Public Protector," says the SABC.

"It also gives the impression that the SABC board has already discussed the matter in detail and has reached a decision on the way forward. It must be put on record that the SABC board released a media statement yesterday, in which it made its position on the matter clear," says the SABC.

In the statement the SABC issued on Thursday, the public broadcaster said that the SABC board met on Wednesday to discuss the issue of the Public Protector's final report (released on Monday) about the SABC and the matricless Hlaudi Motsoeneng.

The SABC said in Thursday's statement that the SABC board has "committed to review it further, seek legal advice and also consult all relevant parties before taking any action in this regard. It must be noted that the current SABC board is new and needs to acquaint itself with all the facts in order to allow itself to apply its mind accordingly".

The SABC chairperson Zandile Tshabalala said in that statement that "the SABC board would like to ask the public to allow them space to go through the review processes as speedily as possible".