Bloedspoor, An Emmy Awarded TV Series To Stream On eVOD In January 2025

eVOD, a South African based streaming service operated by eMedia Investments home to brands such as e.tv, eNCA and Openview had unveiled a new Turkish drama Bloedspoor. After being teased by sources earlier in the year, Bloedspoor (Yargi) will be debuting on the streaming service by January 2025.

The series unfolds love stories among lawyers and judges, adding a layer of emotion to the intense courtroom drama. The series starts when Ilgaz (Kaan Urgancıoğlu), a respected public prosecutor, and Ceylin (Pınar Deniz), a young attorney, cross paths due to a murder case, and are forced to work together in order to uncover the real culprit behind the event that caused irreversible changes in both of their lives.

Kaan Urgancıoğlu has made appearances in other shows such as Bittersoet which had been broadcast on eExtra while Pinar Deniz had been seen in The Red Room which was picked up by SABC 3. Other stars to join the new series include Uğur Polat, Uğur Aslan, Hüseyin Avni Danyal and Mehmet Yılmaz Ak.

Named the Best Telenovela at the 51st International Emmy Awards in New York City in 2023 filming for Bloedspoor wrapped up earlier in the year after three seasons. Ay Yapım that served as the production company for Bloedspoor offered Fenix, Voëlvry and Impak the latter which was licensed by eMedia Investments.

In other developments, Elif is set to conclude in February 2025 after its 5 year run on eExtra this would leave Blink Kant Bo as the only ongoing series as Annekan Die Swa Kry is set to conclude on e.tv in the coming months.

DStv's Linear Offering Reaches A Time Of Uncertainty

For those who have been following DStv's journey through the year would have noticed the lack of additions so far there was only 1Max which substituted 1Magic. Then followed by Arise News for Southern Africa with further expansions of La Liga to DStv Access with Nickelodeon on DStv Compact but was 2024 really the year of DStv???

MultiChoice removed about 12 channels from their platforms most of which were local and now with the company looking to complete it's takeover by Canal+ by April 2025. Former Telkom CEO, Sipho Maseko is also in talks to join the transaction either in a managerial position or a shareholder.

There's been a lot of fear for sometime about Canal+'s next steps should this deal moves ahead one of which includes existing agreements with Disney, BBC and Warner Bros. Discovery. In France, Canal+ has lost exclusivity to the Disney Channels as the content integrate with Disney+ in 2025.

Another Canal+ already offers it's ROK channels on DStv with, Marodi TV, Zacu Entertainment and France24 that reside in Africa. With this transaction, wouldn't they want to give these brands more exposure within the African market as seen with Africa Magic and Mzansi Magic.

Speaking of Africa Magic, ROK has been rivalling with the broadcaster since it's inception in 2016 and Akwaaba Magic when it launched in Ghana by 2021. What is to become of these entities once Canal+ claims the crowns of supposed rivals does ROK become an import of the two as seen with Magic Showcase.

If DStv's matters doesn't worsen, Warner Bros. Discovery and Comcast are shifting away from their cable networks and we're only left with questions about what could be left of Discovery Family. If TLC and Discovery have been serving as imports for the bulk of channels ranging from HGTV, Investigation Discovery, Animal Planet and Food Network.

Then there's Telemundo, how is Comcast's upcoming spin-off going to retain the channel in Africa because the company has a history of discarding their cable networks e.g. Style Network. SpinCo has been the one calling the shots in Africa now this one will be not be affiliated with Comcast.

Comcast has NBC Studios, Universal Pictures, Telemundo Studios and DreamWorks Animation. From what I can recall, M-Net, SABC and eMedia Investments have been licensing select content for consumers in South Africa and this part has only been focused on these regional networks for  growth.

2025 could shape up one of DStv's most dramatic years as MultiChoice faces a lot of uncertainty not only with the arrivals of new owners but some corporate changes. It could be like analysts have said on various occasions MultiChoice will now unrecognizable in the coming years.

Canal+ Debuts On The London Stock Exchange Following Split From Vivendi

French pay TV giant Canal+, which is behind “Paddington” producer Studiocanal, has officially split from parent company Vivendi in time for its 40-year anniversary. Making its debut solo on the London stock exchange on Monday, Canal+ enlisted a homegrown executive, Amandine Ferré — who has been at the company for 15 years and was most recently based in China — to “cut the cord” and engineer the IPO.

Canal+ shares opened this morning at 290p and dropped by about 20% after noon local time, giving the banner an estimated valuation of £2.4 billion. Ferré, who is chief financial officer and a member of Canal+’s management board, tells Variety that the fluctuations were anticipated. “We know that in the first few weeks, our share price is going to be a little volatile,” she says. But the exec is forecasting Canal+’s “shares price volatility will calm down in January.”

Ferré previously spearheaded the French TV group’s acquisition of Chinese streamer Viu and flew back from China to Paris earlier this year after getting a call from Canal+ Group CEO and Vivendi board member Maxime Saada, whom she’s known from her early days working as a strategy consultant at Roland Berger. “You only do a listing once in a career, so I wasn’t going to turn it down!” she says. Ferré, 41, comes in with a deep knowledge of both Canal+ and the international market, having grown up in Africa and lived in India and China. “I’ve had nine jobs in 15 years — It gives me a good overview of what the group does,” she says, citing her experience at Dailymotion, the Canal+-owned online video sharing platform, as well as Canal+ Tech and Studiocanal.

The listing of Canal+ is part of Vivendi’s company-wide split project which also sees advertising group Havas and retail giant Louis Hachette Group listed separately in Amsterdam and Paris, respectively.

Ferré says the idea behind the split is to seek a higher valuation for Canal+ and better leverage the growth of these assets. “Before the split, Vivendi was suffering from a so-called conglomerate discount,” she says. “It is our belief that the sum of the value of each entity in the Vivendi group, i.e. Havas, Canal+, Louis Hachette and all the other shareholdings was largely undervalued when compared to the actual value of Vivendi shares.”

It’s not the first time Vivendi has done this maneuver on high-profile assets. In September 2021, Vivendi scored a major coup by listing Universal Music Group, the music powerhouse whose talent roster includes Taylor Swift and Drake, in Amsterdam, and saw UMG’s shares skyrocket by 39% to reach a valuation of nearly $53 billion. Under the leadership of Canal+ Group’s supervisory board chairman Yannick Bollore, the spinoff plan is also meant to drive growth and synergy opportunities with Canal+’s subsidiaries overseas, including MultiChoice in Africa, Viaplay in Scandinavia and Viu in South-East Asia.

“The listing will enable us to use our stock as currency. We’ve already acquired shares in a number of companies and in the future, we may exchange shares. It opens up opportunities that we didn’t have before,” Ferré says.

Rounding Off 2024: Google Is Attempting To Kill Off Sites Like Insidus

 Before I knew HCU existed

By June of this year was when things changed at Insidus as I thought I was hit with arthomophic penalty which prevents my site for being reachable in a matter of days to six months. Part of me thought my ads were the problem as I had gotten complaints about that reduced it but still no luck.

So I went to Fiver and booked an appointment to have my site disavowed which prevents certain content from getting picked up through Google. I had somewhat duplicated content but this was mainly to update/expand previous articles so yeah that too was also a bust.

I can't recall when I discovered Google was the problem as I was focused on saving Insidus and at that point I was blowing my budget. In one of those encounters a phrase came up "Google Has Killed SEO" so when searching for that you come across a number of individuals with similar experiences as mine.

The introduction of HCU

It was through these experiences that I learnt of Helpful Content Update (HCU) which traces back to September 2023 for most of those individuals. This was basically a algorithmic update that targeted spam and low quality websites and the result came at the price of the livelihoods of several publications.

There was even a whole brawl between affected sites and SEO experts blaming our ads (which are provided by Google BTW) and content. Some of these sites to have been hit range from travel, fashion, gaming and entertainment so for SEO experts to target us was a bit of an overstatement.

Firstly, there's several big publications already breaking Google and SEO guidelines one of which was to not have an ads/malware pop up like it forms part of the website. Some of these so-called experts were quick to justify to level the corruption and use their size as a defence mechanism to get a free pass.

Getting to the problem

In October, Google hosted a creators summit where 20 HCU affected publishers attended in the hopes to get some closure or at least some clarification on where Google stands as far as independent publication gets. The answer let's put it like this let's say you're going on a vacation and you have the one briefcase.

You can't take the whole wardrobe but only essentials you'll most definitely rely on this is where big brands stand over independent publishers.

It was made clear that my content and the ads curated by Google themselves wasn't the problem so who holds more power here SEO experts or the ones in charge of the problem in the first place (being Google). Being encouraged to continue making helpful content is difficult if your resources are limited and Google rewards those who steal them.

If I had to guess thousands of sites like mine where hit with this it may have to do with the rollout of Gemini, Google's attempt at being an answering machine. To top it off, an "improved version" is coming in 2025 most probably to kill off more websites from readers grasp.

To those who aren't being affected, ask yourself is Google doing you any favours by referencing cause if you were the malformed website why should I care about your existence if Google exists. Besides, Google was ousted for "stealing" images and there's AI infused search engines compensating publishers (Google is not one of them).

If 2024 has taught me anything don't put all your eggs in Google's baskets luckily I have a following on other platforms but sadly a large part of it is from Google so screwed anyway. Even if Google had to rewrite their wrong the trust has been broken from the September 2023 update or for me by June 2024.

At that time, I lost over 50% of my traffic and further updates led to an increase but not at the scale post HCU. As for my audience, most of the content is catered for South Africa yet they don't form the top 3 or 5 countries not even the rest of Africa it's mainly France, Hong Kong and European markets.

So how is Google able to get this audience into Insidus is unknown to me if all the keywords I ranked out even the global ones are dead.

I don't care where my audience comes from I'm glad to know there's people out there who care but if you're a running Marvel based website you are expecting a majority be Marvel fans but this is not the case. I can't just change my content if the current setup yields results something so called experts tell publishers.

Conclusion

As I brace for 2025, I will be making some minor changes to how things are run on this website getting it platformitized. Those following me and reading up on my stories know of some of these developments building up YouTube channel, merging Insidus Plus here and finding more sources of income.

Shutdown plans aren't underway as blogging has always been a coping mechanism for me built it with the little I had and can try to recover from that again.

Other publishers also hit with HCU 

Danteizm: Google has killed Blogger. Page is not indexed: Redirect error 

HouseFresh: How Google Is Killing Independent Sites Like Ours

Retro Dodo: Google Is Killing Retro Dodo And Other Independent Sites 

Giant Freakin Robot: The End Of Independent Publishing And Giant Freakin Robot 

Ready Steady Cut: Ready Steady Cut has been destroyed by Google’s algorithmic extinction event and we have tried everything to recover

Warner Bros. Discovery To Separate Linear From Streaming And Studios

Warner Bros Discovery is to bring in a new corporate structure that will see the creation of two separate divisions, Global Linear Networks and Streaming & Studios.

The never-ending cycle of merger and demerger is described as being “designed to enhance its strategic flexibility and create potential opportunities to unlock additional shareholder value.”

The two divisions will both come under the corporate wing of Warner Bros Discovery, but ultimately this could lead to a spin off of the channel assets. A sale of linear channels in the Nordics and Poland is already under consideration and is a reflection of similar moves within the big US networks. The future is clearly in streaming service Max and the production that feeds it.

“Since the combination that created Warner Bros. Discovery, we have transformed our business and improved our financial position while providing world class entertainment to global audiences,” said Warner Bros. Discovery President and CEO, David Zaslav. 

“We continue to prioritise ensuring our Global Linear Networks business is well positioned to continue to drive free cash flow, while our Streaming & Studios business focuses on driving growth by telling the world’s most compelling stories. Our new corporate structure better aligns our organization and enhances our flexibility with potential future strategic opportunities across an evolving media landscape, help us build on our momentum and create opportunities as we evaluate all avenues to deliver significant shareholder value.”

Its expected the new structure will be in place by mid-2025.

Last month, Comcast confirmed the separation of NBCUniversal’s cable television networks including USA Network, CNBC, MSNBC, Oxygen, E!, SYFY and Golf Channel. It might be expected for a similar move to take place at Paramount Global once its new owners are in place.