Reminder: VIU's Contract With eMedia Investments Set To Expire In 2024

Since 2019, VIU an Asian based streaming service has been operating in South Africa and at the time not much was known about the platform as they basked on the existing free-to-air offering from the SABC and e.tv through a contractual agreement.

The platform featured a variety of Indian, Asian and Korean content which by the way match the existing offering on StarSat and Openview deeming it a useful alternative to fans of the content.

Last year, eMedia Investments and VIU got into a legal brawl as eMedia accused the brand of pirating exclusive shows Scandal, Imbewu and Rhythm City to Philosopher which houses several local dramas like Uzalo, Generations and 7de Laan.

 

 

From court's ruling:

"The ineluctable conclusion is that e.tv engineered a contrived cancellation of Vuclip's licensing agreements to gain access to exclusive content, which was exclusively licensed to Vuclip, but which e.tv wished to broadcast on its own platform," the court documents state.

Since the ruling Scandal and Imbewu are no longer available on eVOD and remain exclusive to VIU as Rhythm City was cancelled at the time.

With VIU's contract being valid for another 2 years, the brand may want to look at alternatives or try to build as much relevancy to the market by the means of original content and there's several local studios some of which small which VIU could perhaps funnel their content.

Soul Music Channel Is Next Channel To Stop Airing On The Openview Platform

Following the termination of News And Sport and rebranding of Rewind to eXposed in April, Openview consumers are set to lose yet another channel which is none other than Soul Music.

Soul Music ran on the Openview platform for at least two years initially as a holiday pop-up in 2020 alongside SA Music delivering a mash-up of music and nostalgia for those who enjoy Soul, RnB and Jazz music with the sounds of Diana Ross and Marvin Gaye to Alicia Keys and John Legend.

The channel alongside SA Music once operated on StarSat in December 2014 which is 6 years before it launched on Openview till they were suddenly discontinued by the pay-tv platform alongside several other channels in 2021.

 

A year later, Soul Music is also being discontinued on Openview while SA Music remains on the platform for the time being. It wouldn't be shocking if it followed too as seen with StarSat.

Soul Music doesn't state exactly why the channel is being phased out but only responded to say:

The Soul Music Channel would like to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of you for your constant love and support of the channel. Due to circumstances beyond our control, the Soul Music Channel will no longer be available on the OpenView platform as of 30/06/2022. We are beyond grateful for the love and support always!

As outlined in eMedia's financial year results, they will be sourcing out more channels in the near future.

Redraw Your World: Boomerang Africa Investing In More Preschool As Cartoonito Becomes International Success

In an interview at the TV Kids Summer Festival, Amy Friedman the head of kids and family programming at Warner Bros. highlighted the successful impact of Cartoonito block which saw 15 titles blaze the lineup with more titles like Bugs Bunny Builders, Batwheels and Tom And Jerry Time being added in future.

Despite the outcome of Cartoonito, Warner Bros. Discovery is still creating competition amongst their brands as Boomerang loads its second preschool series for the year, Cocomelon which was picked up particularly for Cartoonito.

 

 

Cocomelon engages families with entertaining and educational content that makes universally-relatable preschool moments fun! All along with music and song for families to watch together.

Since its launch in 2018, it became the most viewed channel in the United States and second globally accumulating 135 million subscribers on YouTube with 129.5 million viewers on YouTube. Aside from YouTube, the content is viewable on several streaming platforms including Netflix, Hulu and Roku.

 

 

Cocomelon is expected to launch on Boomerang outside of Cartoonito by July which coincides with the recent launch of Legends Of Spark which is also preschool.

Taking that into account, is it possible that Warner is slowly phasing out Boomerang for Cartoonito by making the necessary changes to the lineup and with Boomerang being part preschool worked to their advantage.

Could The Rumoured SABC Encore Revival Launch On DStv Perhaps To Replace eExtra?

Two years ago, SABC Encore was ripped away from DStv customers as MultiChoice opted to not renew the agreement for the channel. Since then, there's been several rumours about a possible revival as the SABC had stated they were looking into continuing the channel on another platform.

Aside from DTT which had a blank space, TelkomOne often supplied the channel as somewhat of a pop-up. Of course, would you consider it a pop-up if it didn't last a day better yet 8 hours.

It's evident that the channel isn't fully functional as the SABC is hoping to get some funding on the brand I mean SABC Sport was on limbo for a couple of years supplying repeats from SABC 1-3 and outdated sports and all that changed when TelkomOne and Openview were onboard with supplying the channel. Now it's one of the top 10 watched channels on Openview.

SABC Encore catered toward 18-49 of the 80s and 90s serving up content like 'Sgudi 'Snaysi, Agter Elke Man, Interster, Ubambo Lwami, Pumpkin Patch, Dikolong and Hlala Kwabafileyo, among many others.

 

The channel ran on DStv for approximately 3 years and the additional 2 years were served as open window kind of like EVA and Disney XD where they filled up the schedule with repeats to sort of distance viewers before closing off a channel.

The SABC's reason to zombify had to do with those 2 remaining years as MultiChoice opted to scrap the channel. Although no reason for the dismissal was given there could be a few theories that led to this decision.

Firstly, SABC Encore featured too much repeats and old programming which not a lot of viewers of this generation would follow which could explain the pop-up focus on being a catch-up to the modern SABC 1-3.

Another reason had to do with exclusivity, MultiChoice carried the second most watched channel SABC News alongside SABC Encore which again was all repeats and considering how much money was wasted on the channel. MultiChoice saw no reason in having it on an exclusive basis.

The SABC is set to unveil a couple of new channels alongside their OTT platform before the end of the current financial year and these supposed channels will be bundled on the platform alongside the existing batch of channels like SABC 1-3, Sport and Education.

 

MultiChoice is expected to get 3 channels, Openview and likely StarSat are waiting on 2 channels from the public broadcaster.

The SABC has tested out a brand under the branding, SABC Encore. As stated by the public broadcaster, the new channels or at least the two Openview consumers are waiting on will have existing content and as more consumers follow the channel they'll shift the percentages to make room for fresher entertainment.

If SABC Encore (or as it was initially registered SABC Entertainment) were to return questions kind amount to what type of offering should viewers expect from this supposed channel.

Despite being outdated, SABC Encore was a mashup of SABC 1-3 so I'm not expecting another eExtra to comes out of the rumoured SABC Encore.

eMedia serves as an entertainment brand while the SABC just wants to offer a little bit of everything seen on DStv. eMedia offers movies, drama series and reality shows but with the SABC they incorporate that into the local market which might be the outcome of this supposed channel.

 

MultiChoice did highlight some discrepancies about e.tv channels one of which were the failure to offer local programming and reduce the level of repetition which eMedia was able to counterclaim but still couldn't keep their channels onboard.

Instead of getting more alternatives to Telemundo which is what several angry DStv customers are hoping for within the replacement. Viewers will likely get another Mpuma Kapa or Soweto TV which is in no way competition but better in terms of quality.

New Series Alert: Kuiertyd Premium Welcomes First Exclusive Series, Kruispad

Kuiertyd Premium launched earlier in the year with a repeat of eVOD's telenovela Impak and at the time it was believed that the slot will only be dedicated to content from the streaming services kind of like e.tv's 8pm slot on Sunday but that will likely not be the case in the near future.

Apparently, eExtra acquired rights to never before seen psychological thriller Kruispad (Babil) produced by Kerem Catay who also worked on a lot of projects for the channel including Fenix, Fatmagul, Kurt En Shura, Bittersoet and Die Put.

 

Kruispad explores the life of Irfan, an idealistic professor who is upset by his unfair dismissal and is trying to care for his sick son. As the doors close one by one, Irfan finds himself in the middle of a dark adventure that he can't escape.

Halit Ergenç takes on the lead role of İrfan Tuna Saygun while Onur Saylak/Ozan Güven stars as Egemen Kıvılcım, Aslı Enver as Ayşe Karaali/Nihal, Birce Akalay as İlay Yücedağ, Nur Fettahoğlu as Eda Saygun, Mesut Akusta as Süleyman Yavuncu and Beren Kasımoğulları as Deniz Saygun.

 

The series is said to replace Impak every Sunday at 19:30 on eExtra with repeats available on eVOD from 3rd July.

The launch date concides with Kuiertyd's pay-tv rival kykNET & Kie which will also be rolling out Turkish dramas to DStv consumers due to popular demand and also as a way to fill the void now that viewers have to rely on e.tv and now kykNET for Turkish series.