British Streaming Service BritBox Will Be Shutting Down In South Africa After 3 Years By The End Of August

Launched in South Africa by August 2021, BritBox was a joint venture between British broadcasters BBC Studios and ITV which was home to content accessible on BBC Brit, BBC Lifestyle, BBC Earth, CBeebies and BBC UKTV all of which were accessible on MultiChoice's DStv. 

South Africa was the only African region to offer BritBox and one of eight countries across the world. It is also the second region looking to not close its operations following the UK by the end of April as operations were merged with ITV's existing offering. 

BBC Studios had acquired global rights to the remaining shares of BritBox International. Under this agreement would continue to offer content from ITV with the deal described as a "tremendous opportunity to grow its services and take it to new heights".

Unlike the UK, BritBox will not be replaced with another streaming service and if anything further content is likely to resurface on MultiChoice's Showmax and Netflix. As BBC Studios despite serving as a rival broadcaster continued licensing content to other platforms. 

The news of its demise comes after Acorn TV had closed its doors in the market by the end of 2022. Since then, BBC Studios was the only broadcaster to offer the best in British entertainment now consumers have until the end of August to use their services.

Statement from BritBox about its closure in South Africa 

BritBox has made the difficult decision to discontinue its service in South Africa to align with the brand's strategic priorities. This decision follows careful consideration of market dynamics and business objectives. We sincerely appreciate your past support on behalf of our entire team.

It will cease operations in South Africa by Friday, August 30, 2024. 

Development Alert (Rumour): Star Life Reinstates Daytime Repeats Of Evil Affairs And Beyond Love, Moves Rebroadcasts Of My Identity, Game Of Love And The Evil Eye To Late Nights

During the week, it was reported that Star Life would be adding repeat slots to their late night shows, Beyond Love and Evil Affairs. After one of the two were embroiled in ongoing complaints from viewers about the visuals and themes in the shows.

The idea was to keep the uncensored entertainment in the night which was met with backlash from various viewers. As some could only catchup with daytime repeats and the decision to remove these shows only led to a decline in viewers.

Star Life opted to give these shows additional slots in the night but the times were so horrendous. Viewership for any TV channel is usually much lower in the timeslots of Evil Affairs and Beyond Love but the channel opted to worsen it by repeating them by 1am.

Viewers were once again outraged by the decision and took to Facebook and Instagram to post their displeasure with the channel.

Now it looks like Star Life will backing off in restricting these shows as an updated programme guide for next month sees Evil Affairs and Beyond Love getting their daytime slots back. So the question will there be censorship we'll have to wait and see.

But that's not the only change the channel could be making by next month. There's still no official word on any of these developments but from what we can see rebroadcasts of Game Of Love, My Identity and The Evil Eye move to the 3am to 5am timeslot. 

Similar to Evil Affairs and Beyond Love, these shows will no longer have repeats outside of these timeslots. As mentioned while Beyond Love and Evil Affairs get their timeslots back, Jhanak and String Of Love replace The Evil Eye at 11pm with Anupama at 5pm.

On the upside, viewers get Beyond Love and Evil Affairs daytime repeats and on the other any chance to relive nostalgic moments had gone down the drain. 

Development Alert: Nicktoons Global (Including Africa) Might Be Debuting Splat Rebrand Soon

Earlier in the month, Nicktoons got the Splat rebrand in the UK after it failed to do so in Africa earlier in the year. Amidst the rebrand in the UK, there were rumours that remaining feeds of the channel would also adopt this new logo within the month.

Surprise, several viewers had spotted the soon-to-be launched logo for Nicktoons between shows. As pictured above, the logo is now in the top right corner as seen with sister channels Nickelodeon and Nick Jr. and from the looks of the graphics these designs are likely from European feeds.

As some readers are aware, most of Paramount’s channels particularly in Europe had been globalized with some brands like BET and MTV Base still seen with local variations. 

Nicktoons' African feed was part of this latter but may not be the case entirely. Sometime in 2023, the channel's older kids lineup matched of Germany, Turkey, Arabia and Asia so it didn't seem that much coincidental that we'd rebrand altogether. 

Several rumours point toward the channel rebranding later in the following week. I mean considering the UK had rebranded much earlier you'd presume other feeds would follow within a 3 month timeframe if not sooner.

Disney Channel Remains Silent On A Season 3 Renewal Status Of The Villains Of Valley View With Some Fearing It Got Cancelled

The Villains of Valley View is an American comedy television series created by Chris Peterson and Bryan Moore that premiered on Disney Channel on June 3, 2022. The series stars Isabella Pappas, Malachi Barton, Reed Horstmann, Kayden Muller-Janssen, James Patrick Stuart, and Lucy Davis.

Synopsis for The Villains of Valley View 

At the center of the story is teenage Havoc, who stands up against the leader of all villains, forcing her entire family to change their identities and relocate to a Texas suburb where she now goes by the name Amy. With the help of her effervescent new neighbor Hartley, she must somehow hide her superpowers and quell her villainous nature in favor of something she's fought against all her life — being normal.

Since its inception, The Villains Of Valley View was met with a lot of praise with Sportskeeda describing as it as a "resounding success" with an interesting premise. This was followed by Common Sense Media which gave it a 3 out of 5 star ratings for its depiction of positive messages and role models.

During the year, Disney Channel had axed Bunk'd which served as the longest running live-action show on the network. This was followed by cancellations of The Ghost And Molly McGee, Saturdays and Raven's Home with fear lurking around The Villains Of The Valley View. 

As some readers are aware, there was an actor's strike last year which caused several productions to go on hiatus if not get cancelled. According to some insiders at Disney, this had contributed the network to go slow on renewals ensuring that the content is successful. 

The Villains Of Valley View's chances of a season 3 is dependent on how many people were tuning in during the second season. Of course chances of that seem to be slim as some of the cast are rumoured to have other projects in development.

Was Toonami Initially Meant To Be The Official Broadcaster Of All Elite Wrestling And Adult Swim In Africa, Here's Why?

Toonami is an animation brand operated by Warner Bros. Discovery that catered for young adults. It is home to DC legends such as Batman, Superman, Green Lantern and Justice League alongside anime like DragonBall and Inazuma Eleven.

It was also home to select shows from Cartoon Network like Secret Saturdays, Symbionic Titans and Ben 10: Omniverse.

As some readers are aware, Toonami once resided in France and since last year had been folded under Warner TV. Although various content from Toonami remained intact, Warner TV isn't necessarily a youth oriented but more youth infused.

Warner TV was being structured as a TV channel for archived material from Warner Bros. Studios and this includes content from Adult Swim. This came in celebration of their 100 year anniversary with expansion plans still underway across Europe.

Now from what some recall here, the same people who operated Toonami (now Warner TV) in France also managed the feed in Africa. By the time the feed transitioned from a children's channel to an adult channel a similar outcome awaited Africa. 

Unlike France, Africa's feed didn't offer any content from Adult Swim or wrestling promotion, All Elite Wrestling. Toonami was reduced to content from its current trademark, anime and DC shows.

Although the latter skipped Toonami, Warner Bros. Discovery did however acquire rights to these titles for TNT. Estimated guess for this was accessibility, Kwesé TV had exclusive rights to Toonami at the time but it wasn't accessible as MultiChoice's DStv.

Another reason, Kwesè TV had shuttered their doors in 2018 and Toonami was running through laps to retain their presence. It was on Cell C's Black until it closed a year later with MultiChoice and StarTimes that only revived it by 2020.

During this time, Toonami in France had acquired rights to both Adult Swim and All Elite Wrestling. Interesting to note, TNT also garnered rights to Adult Swim (temporarily) within that timeframe with All Elite Wrestling that followed a year after Toonami's relaunch. 

This timeframe could corporate with the possible inclusion of Adult Swim and All Elite Wrestling on Toonami in Africa.