4 months free: Disney+ in South Africa sweetens introductory annual subscription fee.

by Thinus Ferreira

Disney is going all-in in its build-up to the launch of its Disney+ video streaming service in South Africa on 18 May and is doing a "special introductory offer" for a year's subscription fee at R950 which will be cheaper than the already cheaper annual subscription fee of R1 190.

Disney+ will launch in South Africa on 18 May at a cost of R119 per month or the cheaper R1 190 per year. 

The Mouse House is however sweetening the Winnie the Pooh TV watching honey pot by allowing interested subscribers to register their interest beforehand, starting now, for a special introductory offer of R950 for an annual Disney+ subscription - a further discount on the discounted annual fee.

It means that a South African Disney+ viewer, paying for an annual subscription for 12 months, is effectively scoring four months for free and only paying for eight months.

South Africans who are interested need to register their interest on www.disneyplus.com after which those who have registered their interest will receive a link to the exclusive offer on the Disney+ launch day of 18 May.

According to Disney South Africa, this introductory offer will only be available to people who have pre-registered their interest before midnight on 17 May, ahead of the Disney+ launch day.

Disney+ offers up to four concurrent streams, 4K quality for selected titles and the ability to set up 7 different profiles.

Disney+ enters South Africa where it will compete with more established global streaming services in the region like Netflix SA, Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV+ as well as local streaming services like MultiChoice's Showmax and eMedia's eVOD.  

ALSO READ: Disney+ to launch 18 May in South Africa at R119 per month.

Amazon Studios expands its TV exec headhunting in Africa to set up a Nigerian Originals team - now looking for a head of Nigerian Originals and TV and film execs for Nigeria.

by Thinus Ferreira

After advertising multiple jobs early in 2022 for TV executives in South Africa, Amazon Studios is expanding its search for TV execs in Africa to produce content from the content and is now hunting for a head of Nigerian Originals as well as movie and scripted series executives for Nigeria.

While Amazon Studios has big plans to scale up its localised TV production presence in South Africa and is ramping up plans to get a South African based TV executive team in place as it competes with the likes of streamers like MultiChoice's Showmax, Netflix, Apple TV+, as well as Disney+ launching 18 May, Amazon Studios has the same aspirations for Nigeria.

While the team for South African content creation will primarily be based in Cape Town, Amazon Studios is looking to set up its initial Nigerian originals in-house team working from London in the United Kingdom.

Amazon Studios is now looking for a head of Nigerian Originals, a senior scripted series creative executive, and a senior movies creative executive who will all have to work from London from where they will be "executing Amazon Prime Video's overall content strategy for Nigeria and Africa".

Amazon Studios is looking for execs with a "deep knowledge of the Nigerian production landscape, including talent".

Similar to the positions advertised in South Africa, Amazon Studios is clearly looking to poach well-connected and highly networked executives from existing and established broadcasters as well as traditional pay-TV players like MultiChoice in Africa, noting that the jobs are for executives with "multiple years of scripted series and TV development experience at an executive level".

The execs are all required to have a proven track record of having developed successful content in the form of series and film within Nigeria for a Nigerian audience.

Amazon Studios' head of Nigerian Originals will "have day-to-day oversight of the creation and grown of Amazon Prime Video's slate of local original content from Nigeria" with the video streamer saying the person will "leverage your hands-on development and production experience, high judgment, collaborate spirit and deep industry knowledge to bring a slate of projects to life to delight Prime Video customers everywhere".

The head of Nigerian Originals will "be joining a dynamic, hands-on and growing Amazon Studios team" the company says, and will be reporting to Ned Mitchell, Amazon Studios' head of originals for Africa.

In December 2021 Amazon Studios signed a licensing deal with Nigeria's Inkblot Studios and followed it up with a similar deal with Anthill Studios in Lagos in the West African country in January 2022 as it looks to rapidly catch up in adding African content to its streaming catalogue with primarily Netflix and Showmax that have more of a head start.

ALSO READ: Amazon Studios looking to poach experienced South African TV executives as its plans to ramp up its localised Amazon Prime Video SA presence.

SABC3 fills its 2-month prime time The Estate telenovela gap with a repackaged rebroadcast titled The Estate Rewind.

by Thinus Ferreira

SABC3 is no longer replacing the 2-month gap between the second season and the start of the third season of its local telenovela The Estate with a rebroadcast of SABC1's Family Secrets from today, but will now be showing repackaged episodes of the first two seasons of The Estate, retitled as The Estate Rewind, from Monday evening.

The third season of The Estate was supposed to continue seamlessly on S3 after the end of the second season which was this past Friday but issues around the recommissioning process meant there will now be a gap of just over two months before viewers will see new episodes of the ratings-challenged show.

The debut of the third season of The Estate which S3 originally announced as 1 July has now also been brought slightly forward with the first new episode of the Clive Morris Productions show that will now start on 20 June in the tough timeslot of 19:00.

SABC3 initially planned to fill The Estate's timeslot with a rebroadcast of the SABC1 series Family Secrets with Khanyi Mbau, Katlego Danke, Vusi Kunene and Robert Whitehead from 18 April.

That has now changed and Family Secrets will now start on S3 on 16 May.  

For a month from 18 April, SABC3 will now show The Estate Rewind - repackaged episodes from the first two seasons, showing the major plot points of the story so far.

"The Estate Rewind episodes will explore the subject of land reform, identity, and historical disempowerment. It will give the viewers a teaser of what to expect in The Estate season 3, which is set to return on 20 June 2022," S3 says.

Pat van Heerden, SABC3 channel head says "The Estate Rewind is our time to get up close to the world of our story. It is a time for us to contemplate the lines between reality and fiction – and how sometimes fictional daily drama can give us acute truths about the real world".

The Estate, revolving around the dual rich/poor communities of an exclusive housing development has had a troubled production and viewership history since its debut a year ago in April 2021 as an Isidingo prime time replacement.

The Estate has been struggling severely to hook eyeballs and with anaemic ratings slipping lower, the SABC decided to rebroadcast the first season during prime time on sister channel SABC1 in 2021 to try and lure more viewers to the second season on S3.

The Estate made its debut on SABC3 in April 2021 with disappointing ratings that kept worsening, mostly due to damage suffered by the success of e.tv's House of Zwide in the same death-zone 19:00-timeslot.

The Estate only pulled 352 741 viewers at most during prime time on S3 during March 2022.

Last year the cast and crew of The Estate went unpaid for months with several broken promises of payment and with the SABC at the time saying it had "great concern" about the issue.

Clive Morris Productions told cast and crew in late-2021 that their payments can't be made because of "delayed payment from the SABC", but the SABC said that it had paid the company.

ALSO READ: SABC3's troubled The Estate going off-air for over 2 months.

ALSO READ: SABC1 tries to save S3's The Estate with a bizarre primetime rerun from 6 September at 7pm with the local telenovela that will now be shown back-to-back on two SABC channels nightly.

ALSO READ: SABC removes the SABC1 rebroadcast of SABC3's struggling The Estate telenovela that will vanish a month before the end of its first season. 

ALSO READ: SABC1 returns the remaining first season episodes of SABC3's struggling telenovela The Estate to its schedule in March with a double bill conclusion on 8 April.

Richard Nosworthy - veteran South African scriptwriter and producer of stage, film, TV, and music - has died.

by Thinus Ferreira

Richard Nosworthy, a veteran South African producer of theatre, TV, film and music; screenwriter and director, and a director of photography has died. His cause of death is unknown.

Through an industry-career spanning more than 40 years, Richard Harry Nosworthy was notably the co-creator and series producer of The Wild local telenovela for M-Net (DStv 101), but did work across a multitude of TV shows over 4 decades, for South Africa TV channels ranging from SABC1 and SABC2, to M-Net, kykNET, SuperSport and e.tv.

Established in the early 80s, Richard Nosworthy was the CEO of Plum Productions.

Richard Nosworthy wrote, shot, directed and produced more than 2 000 hours of programming for both South African and international broadcast television, including numerous TV commercials, and also produced and directed multiple DVDs for South African singers.

According to his industry biography, Richard Nosworthy worked on TV shows across genres spanning from SABC3's Top Billing, SABC1's Selimathunzi , SABC2' Fair Deal to M-Net's Front Row, Carte Blanche and The Wild, as well as the Xhosa consumer programme Ufunda Ngomzikelo, Hare Bapaleng, Masidlale, The Second Mrs Styles, Zikathele, Jozi Streets, Bentley, FotoStories, Pikin and many more.

In theatre he worked on stage productions like Old Friends, Flight of Bird, The Music Teacher, Number One, Crazy Diamond – a tribute to Pink Floyd, and in music was involved with the production of hundreds of music videos.

Richard Nosworthy started his career at the Market Theatre in 1978 as an actor in Mario Schies's production of Equus and exited the Market Theatre as stage manager in 1983 when he started his TV and film production company, Plum Productions.

Richard Nosworthy produced and directed Botswerere for BOP TV', produced and directed the first-ever coverage of indoor-cricket for the SABC's Top Sport, and the first-ever TV drama series shot entirely on the Betacam format in South Africa like The Edge and Zikalele.

During the 1990s Richard Nosworthy started working with international producers who were working in Africa, ranging from MTV Europe to Denmark's TV2, September Films in London, Brighter Pictures in London, FIFA TV, the Middle East Broadcasting Centre & Children's Television Workshop from New York and more.

In 2003 Richard Nosworthy joined with producers Clive Morris and Felix Meyburgh to produce the feature film A Case of Murder starring Steve Hofmeyr, Gideon Emery and Candice Hillebrand which was shown on M-Net in 2005. Richard served as executive producer, line producer and assistant director.

In 2004 Richard Nosworthy directed and was the line producer of 15 episodes of the drama series Jozi Streets for eMedia's e.tv.

In March 2007 he qualified with a Certificate in Entertainment Law at the University of Johannesburg.

From producing, writing and directing the annual Muse Awards show for South Africa's Writers' Guild of South Africa (WGSA), to producing and directing numerous TV commercials, Richard Nosworthy also did a lot of corporate video work like creating a Heritage documentary for MultiChoice about the pay-TV operator's history.

In 2017 he launched the Scribe Writers Room as a scriptwriting incubator to help scriptwriters from a variety of backgrounds to develop projects in a safe, uncensored and private environment. 

He often did screenwriting classes, and helped with developing and writing spec scripts, and was constantly developing productions for stage, film and television, with a never-ending interest in helping to create new projects with interesting or unusual challenges.

In 2019 he became a member of the National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) council and their audit committee In addition, he has been developing and writing a few spec scripts. 

He did part-time lecturing at Rhodes University Journalism department with practical TV production workshops, for the South African Scriptwriters Association, AFDA Johannesburg, WGSA and the Moving Pictures Foundation.

Richard Nosworthy served as a judge on various industry panels, including for the NFVF's South African Film and Television Awards (SAFTAs), the South African Society of Cinematographers and the Writers Guild of South Africa. In 2015 Richard was awarded the Special Service Award by the Writers Guild of South Africa.

11 graduate from MultiChoice Talent Factory SA's first Scriptwriting Incubator.

by Thinus Ferreira

The MultiChoice Talent Factory's (MTF) first Scriptwriwting Incubator has delivered its first 11 interns who graduated with a graduation ceremony that took place at The Capital on the Park in Johannesburg.

Besides running the usual MultiChoice Talent Factory film school in both South Africa, as well as across the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, the South African version of the MTF started a Scriptwriting Incubator programme as an African first, offering practical workplace experience and mentorship from experienced South African producers and scriptwriters.

The MultiChoice Talent Factory has been running the scriptwriting programme since February 2021 in partnership with the University of the Witwatersrand's Film and Television department, as well as Tshedza Pictures which produced Legacy for M-Net (DStv 101), The River for Mzansi Magic (DStv 161) and Giyani: Land of Blood for SABC2.

"We set out to create learnership programmes that are not only informative but also provide candidates with insightful practical experience for ease of entry into the workplace," says Collen Dlamini, MultiChoice corporate affairs executive.

"We honour our African roots through the stories we tell. It's important that MultiChoice continues to build on this narrative in everything we do."

"We are incredibly proud of our graduates. One of them has written an episode of The River (season 4, episode 147), 5 have been offered employment by Tshedza Pictures, while other graduates already have jobs lined up."

MultiChoice is looking to expand South Africa's Scriptwriting Incubator to the MultiChoice Talent Factory setup run in the rest of Africa.

South Africa's SABC and e.tv want 'watertight advertising revenue limits' imposed on MultiChoice as Icasa relooks ad and sponsorship regulations.

by Thinus Ferreira

South Africa's broadcasters like the public broadcaster SABC and eMedia's free-to-air commercial e.tv want "watertight advertising revenue limits" to be imposed on pay-TV operators like MultiChoice running DStv, with an adjusted cap on the amount of money that a pay-TV operator - making money from subscriber fees  - can additionally earn from TV commercials.

eMedia also wants regulations deleted to enable it to take advertising and sponsorship of news and current affairs, including for weather forecasts and sports bulletins.

South Africa's broadcasting regulator, the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa), has published a discussion document in the Government Gazette with e.tv and the SABC that said they're unhappy with the slice of overall TV commercial revenue DStv Media Sales gets as MultiChoice's advertising arm.

Icasa has now published the draft regulations and findings document on its review of the regulator's advertising, infomercials and programme sponsorship regulations of 1999, with broadcasters asking Icasa that "a watertight advertising revenue cap for subscription broadcasting services should be introduced".

The SABC told Icasa that it wants, among other things, an advertising cap for DStv in the form of a "reduction of advertising minutes per hour for subscription services, restrictions on the rate card discounts and any other necessary regulatory intervention".

The SABC said that its revenue from commercials on its TV channels and radio stations are declining. 

eMedia said that the current advertising revenue share breaks down as 21.71% for eMedia Investments, 28.78% for the SABC and 39.02% for MultiChoice.

eMedia urged Icasa to expand the regulations to include all video streaming services available in South Africa "to protect the sustainability and viability of free-to-air services in South Africa which will mean that Icasa should consider the expansion of the proposed regulatory licensing framework to include all audio-visual content service providers and not only broadcasters".

eMedia said that with the shrinking advertising pie available to broadcasters, to ensure the continued viability of free-to-air broadcasters, "limitations need to be placed on the amount of advertising

time available to subscription broadcasters".

eMedia suggested that limitations placed on MultiChoice should be substantially more stringent than those placed on a free-to-air broadcaster, since MultiChoice has no such limitations.

eMedia goes so far as to suggest to Icasa that no advertising should be permitted on channels not produced in South Africa, or on programmes produced by any company associated with or within the group of companies providing such subscription broadcasting service - meaning MultiChoice and M-Net with its set of M-Net channels on DStv.

Meanwhile eMedia wants regulations 5.3 and 5.4 scrapped in order for advertising and sponsorship to be enabled for news and current affairs programmes, which would include for weather forecasts or sports bulletins.

MultiChoice told Icasa that the changing television landscape in South Africa "warrants an easing of the current advertising restrictions rather than the introduction of any additional restrictions".

MultiChoice, the SABC, e.tv and the insurance company OUTsurance all said that the regulations to prohibit the broadcast of infomercials during prime time on television in South Africa should be removed, with Icasa that said it will retain the status quo of regulations around so-called "squeezeback" TV ads.

While none of the broadcasters or MultiChoice said they felt that product placement (PP) in shows need to be indicated when it happens - something that is done overseas - Icasa said its position is that product placement must be signalled clearly, by means of a logo, at the beginning of the programme in which

the placement appears, and at the end of the programme. 

"The reason for such provision is to provide certainty and transparency to audiences so that they are able to differentiate normal programming from product placement."

Written responses on the draft regulations must be made to Icasa by 1 June 2022.

CNN's distribution-limited CNN+ video streaming service has a paltry 10 000 users after $300 million dollar investment, budget to be slashed.

by Thinus Ferreira

CNN's streaming service CNN+ is apparently a failure with lacklustre uptake of the video streaming service in the United States, with reports there that CNN+ has a laughably low less than 10 000 daily users despite an investment of millions of dollars, and with insiders revealing that dramatic budget cutbacks are already coming as the aspirational plans for CNN+ are now heavily scaled back. 

Shockingly, CNN+ sit with less than 10 000 daily users since CNN launched its video streaming service in America two weeks ago on 29 March, CNBC reports. This is after WarnerMedia (now Warner Bros Discovery) poured millions of dollars into creating CNN+ and signing massive talent deals, and to create new shows for the platform.

Bizarrely, CNN+ only launched in North America, isn't available on several platforms and isn't supported by Google TV/Android TV or on Samsung Smart TVs, Xbox or Playstation gaming consoles.

CNN has been very vague but said there are plans to roll CNN+ out globally. South Africans can get CNN+ but the linear TV channel CNN International (DStv 401) is available on MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV service.

A CNN spokesperson in a statement said that "We continue to be happy with the launch and its progress after only two weeks."

Axios in America reported that according to insiders the budget of CNN+ is going to be cut dramatically because of the low level of adoption of the service. Warner Bros. Discovery initially planned to invest around $1 billion in CNN+ but that will no longer happen.

$300 million has already been spent on setting up CNN+ but the 10 000 daily users is far off from the 2 million subscribers CNN and Warner Bros. Discovery projected to sign up during CNN+'s first year.

As the spending on CNN+ gets cut, so will the subscriber projections.

Tears-certified: The 10th season of Car SOS on National Geographic starting on 26 April promises terrific Tim and Fuzz renovations.

by Thinus Ferreira

Tim and Fuzz are getting ready to pull off the biggest dilapidated car-makeover surprises yet for the upcoming 100th episode transforming a petrol to an electric car in the new 10th season of Car SOS on National Geographic with celebrity guests like David Beckham and Sir Paul McCartney in stories that will have the tears flowing.

The 10th season of the iconic car makeover series Car SOS with Tim Shaw and Fuzz Townshend will start on National Geographic (DStv 181 / StarSat 220) on Tuesday 26 April at 19:00 for 10 new episodes that will include the show's 100th renovation which will leave viewers awestruck.  

Besides celebrity pop-ins from David Beckham, Sir Paul McCartney, Manchester United legends like Bryan Robson and Wes Brown, as well as others, Car SOS's 10th season will feature 10 more truly remarkable car restoration stories of owners who never thought they'd see it, getting the reveals of their life when their treasured but rundown classic cars are fully restored to prime condition and ready for the road.

The 10th season of Car SOS starts with the incredible makeover of a Fiat Uno Turbo which was once the pride and joy of Gerry who recently discovered that he was suffering from a rare form of blood cancer, leaving him unable to fix-up his car.

He underwent several months of chemotherapy which initially helped – however sadly it was then discovered that cancer had spread to his spine. The Car SOS team battles through a series of setbacks to get the car back to its former glory with amazing results.

In what promises to be one of the most moving episodes in Car SOS history later in the upcoming 10th season involving the Howe family, Darcie was at the Ariana Grande concert at the Manchester Arena when a bomb went off.

Darcie survived, but her mother who had come to collect her was sadly killed. Before the tragic blast, they wanted to restore their 1963 Citroen HY Camionette into a milkshake and coffee van but as is usual with the people featured in Car SOS, never got around to it.

Bryan Robson and Wes Brown are part of this Car SOS episode in which the renovated vehicle is revealed at the Old Trafford football stadium in a highly emotional episode.

Also featured in the new season is Ash, an electrician from Huddersfield who owns a 1992, VW Corrrado.

After being diagnosed with testicular cancer and then coming close to death from sepsis, Ash was left too weak to be able to keep the car in shape which ended up rotting away behind an industrial estate. His wife Kristina works with Tim and Fuzz for a car makeover surprise.

The 100th episode of Car SOS will see a classic vehicle transformed from petrol to a top-range electric car.

Why Heindrich Wyngaard as Kaapse Forum chairperson remains the host of KLOP! on kykNET.

by Thinus Ferreira

The presenter and socio-political commentator Heindrich Wyngaard who is now the chairperson of the lobby group Cape Forum is no longer a host of KN Verslag since the start of April but remains the host of KLOP! on television because kykNET says KLOP! is an a-political talk show.

There's been growing questions around a perceived conflict of interest as Heindrich Wyngaard continues to be the presenter of a weekly TV programme on DStv, whilst serving as the chairperson of the new lobby group started with the help of the AfriForum lobby group.

Cape Forum in a statement said that the lobby group "will focus, among other things, on promoting community self-reliance in Cape communities and helping to establish growing federalism in the Western Cape and Cape communities".

"Tax federalism where taxpayers money is largely used locally, will form a core part of the Cape Forum's action plan."

Heindrich Wyngaard told CapeTalk in a radio interview that the Cape civil society organisation "is not a coloured AfriForum" and that while the lobby group has AfriForum's backing, Cape Forum (Kaapse Forum in Afrikaans) doesn't have the same ideology or agenda.

While Heindrich Wyngaard stepped away as an anchor of the news and actuality show KN Verslag on the kykNET (DStv 144) channel, he remains the host of the KLOP! talk show on the kykNET&kie (DStv 145) channel, with both shows produced by Idea Candy. 

This has left a growing number of kykNET & Kie viewers wondering whether Heindrich Wyngaard is representing or asking questions on behalf of the Cape Forum.

"KLOP! is an a-political talk show that focuses on personalities and various topics that are serious and light-hearted. KN Verslag is a current affairs show with more of a political focus," Waldimar Pelser, M-Net director for kykNET channels, tells TVwithThinus.

"When Heindrich made kykNET and Idea Candy, the production company, aware he will be joining Kaapse Forum, the three parties agreed it would be best to release him from KN Verslag in order to minimise the risk of a perceived conflict of interest."

Asked how kykNET viewers are supposed to know that Heindrich Wyngaard is not representing or asking questions on behalf of Cape Forum during KLOP!-episodes, Waldimar Pelser says "When presenting KLOP!, Heindrich's obligation is to serve the viewers of kykNET&kie in a professional manner. This is an obligation to which all our presenters are held".

kykNET says it believes in editorial independence and that Heindrich Wyngaard's obligation is to serve the viewers of kykNET&kie in a professional manner.

ALSO READ: Heindrich Wyngaard exits KN Verslag on kykNET to head up new political pressure group, will continue to host talk show KLOP! on kykNET & Kie.