News Shorts: People's Weather Loads Up On New Documentary Guardians Of The Forest, Divya-Drishti Gets A New Release Date On Star Life And Warner Bros. Discovery Scraps Tooncast And TCM From Brazil By The End Of 2023

People's Weather is travelling to Zambia

People's Weather, an environmental and wildlife channel currently viewed on DStv and Openview had announced the launch of a new documentary Guardian Of The Forest from Tuesday 5 December.

Explore how the magnificent Luangwa Valley in Zambia is working to protect its forests, biodiversity and livelihoods. With investable carbon offsets, the Luangwa Valley is making Africa shine by helping save the planet by reducing emissions through the proper management of forests, surrounding communities and their interaction with nature. 
Star Life is giving the run-around

During the month, Star Life was initially slated to launch the supernatural drama Divya Drishti but to many viewers surprise the current rebroadcast to A Magical Love Story would take up its timeslot daily at 23:00 with repeats still at 17:00.

Through an updated EPG, Divya Drishti is anticipated to replace Mismatched at 22:00 from Sunday 24 December - exactly as I anticipated. Of course, we take "premiere dates" on both Zee World and Star Life with a grain of salt and rather focus on the program in general.

Sky boots two WB channels

Through a viewer in Brazil, it was announced TCM and Tooncast would be exiting Sky on 31 December 2023. It's currently unknown whether this affects Latin America but prior to the termination consumers across Europe would be losing Discovery Turbo Xtra and Discovery Science.

Tooncast was a Latin American adaptation to the current Boomerang and Boing channels seen globally as the channel would leverage content viewed on Cartoon Network while TCM was viewed as a retro movie channel home to films from the 60s to 00s.

Before TCM's exit in Brazil the channel was shuttered across the UK and if one had to guess the reason for these terminations. Warner Bros. Discovery is probably removing non-performing channels as they've seen a decline in relevance from advertisers and viewers.

Bulldog Licensing To Represent Banijay’s Totally Spies! Reboot

UK agency Bulldog Licensing (Sesame Street, Care Bears) has come on board to oversee consumer products in the region for Banijay Kids & Family’s Totally Spies! franchise just months ahead of the brand’s series reboot (26 x 22 minutes, pictured) premiering on France’s Gulli and Discovery Kids Latin America. 

Targeting six- to nine-year-olds, the 2D-animated series was greenlit in 2022, and Warner Bros. Discovery has also picked it up to launch next year on Cartoon Network (US) and Max (EMEA).

Totally Spies! originally debuted in 2001 on ABC Family (now Freeform) in the US and ran for six seasons until 2013. The anime-inspired toon about three female teens balancing spy missions and high school drama has since been sold into 220 territories and is currently available in 60 languages. 

Over the years, the brand has built and maintained a strong digital presence on YouTube, where 351 million hours of episodes have been streamed, according to Banijay. 

Given the original series’ cult following among Millennials and Gen-Z, Bulldog plans to initially tap into the “strong adult nostalgia market” before moving on to product categories for kids. To begin with, the company is eyeing apparel (daywear and nightwear), fashion accessories, health & beauty, stationery and tech products.

Bulldog’s strategy aligns well with a broader industry trend to serve the lucrative “kidult” demographic, which was responsible for  nearly US$9 billion in sales last year, according to The Toy Association.

Bulldog managing director Rob Corney says the company will start courting potential licensees soon, on the heels of observing a “great reaction” to the Totally Spies! brand at this year’s Brand Licensing Europe event. 

Important Notice: Insidus 2.0 Is Coming Soon

From 31 December 2023, Regular Nick: Games and Insidus Plus will cease to exist as the latter will be refolded under Insidus. We are looking to promote content that not only attract our local readers but those staying abroad. This is something we've been looking to do for a while now and we thank our readers for supporting these brands.

Here's some Q&A's

1. When will Regular Nick: Games and Insidus Plus shut down?

From 31 December 2023, the site could remain active for another three months.

2. What will happen to the content on Regular Nick: Games and Insidus Plus?

We are backing up content from Insidus Plus and will roll them out shortly as for Regular Nick: Games we are looking to reboot this area. For those worried about losing out on content, just to let you know we will be rolling out Insidus Collection which will feature various content from both brands including unreleased.

3. What will happen to the pages of Regular Nick: Games and Insidus Plus through Insidus Lite?

Replacements are currently in development for both of course they may start out as lightweight but we will make Insidus Collection available to fill that gap as we promote numerous archived material.

4. Are Regular Nick: Games and Insidus Plus being discontinued due to poor reception?

No, numerous brands had been doing consolidation and we felt it was about time we did some consolidating of our own. Regular Nick: Games and Insidus Plus will continue to be our greatest creation and them finding a new home on Insidus would equal to more reach especially with SEO.

5. What to expect on Insidus come 2024?

As mentioned, we are looking to offer the best of Regular Nick: Games and Insidus Plus without jeopardizing the content currently distributed on Insidus. The remainder of 2023 and onwards will be used to build up the offering from these brands.

A lot of excitement comes out from revisiting this journey and we are looking to introduce more new stuff.

Recap To The Week: Disney's ESPN 1 Currently Seen On DStv And StarSat Is Set To Take On SABC Sport

During the day, it was reported that MultiChoice and Disney would be adding the US sports channel ESPN 1 to its R129 per month DStv Access package. It was previously only available on the R449-a-month Compact package or higher which concide with the addition of NWTV.

Since Openview's inception, it served as a rival brand to DStv's existing offering with general entertainment channels like eReality and eSeries, lifestyle brands like People's Weather and The Home Channel+ and Bollywood entertainment from Star Life and Zee One.

They had also garnered popularity from SABC Sport which serves as one of the top 10 most watched channels on the Openview platform.

In previous years, Access served as somewhat of an underling to the freemium platform as it lacked a worthy advisory to the current offering. Despite offering more channels there wasn't noteworthy content on the bouquet and in recent years MultiChoice had started to catch-up with eMedia Investments.

Zee Zonke was added back in August as the first Zulu dubbed telenovela channel and also Access consumers first Bollywood channel with the likes of Star Life and eExtra's Kuiertyd partially contributing to Openview's success and from December ESPN 1 will be added to the bouquet.

ESPN 1 features live football from the English Football League (EFL), Scottish Premier Football League (SPFL), Dutch Eredivisie and Major League Soccer (MLS), as well as local sports like West African Football Union (WAFU) Cup of Nations and featured boxing tournaments and events.

It will basically take on SABC Sport which too had been dominant on football particularly with Bundesliga, Cosafa Women’s Championship and Liverpool Football Club with other content like Racing Today (from 4Racing TV), Max Power and Retro Boxing.

Development Alert: MultiChoice And The Walt Disney Company Extend The Reach Of ESPN 1 To DStv Family And Access Customers PERMANENTLY

MultiChoice has announced that it is adding the US sports channel ESPN 1 to its R129 per month DStv Access package.

DStv Access customers will have access to the channel starting 1 December 2023. It was previously only available on the R449-a-month Compact package or higher.

ESPN focuses on US sports like basketball, American football, and baseball, giving fans of these sports in South Africa a significantly lower entry point to watch them.

Popular competitions include the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the National Football League (NFL).

“We continue to monitor viewership trends and are thrilled to be adding ESPN 1 for our DStv Access customers,” said Marc Jury, CEO of MultiChoice South Africa.

“This announcement is our way of rewarding our loyal customers with a wider catalogue of entertaining content to choose from,” he added.

“We are also excited that this move will also give sports fans out there looking to get more, for less, an opportunity to stay in the game and take our offering to be front row of the best sports entertainment in the world.”

Basketball and American football fans in South Africa will have access to a slew of NFL and NBA fixtures over the festive season, including on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year’s Eve, and New Year’s Day.

“We look forward to celebrating the achievements and triumphs of both international and local athletes, our quality storytelling and innovative content with a brand new audience of sports fans across the continent,” says Kyle de Klerk, director of sport for the Walt Disney Company Africa.