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It's eight minutes before eight o'clock, 10 for us to shift our attention to film and TV.
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And one of the big stories, kind of one, not kind of, but certainly playing out at the
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moment, is what is happening at multi-choice, following their acquisition by French Giant
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We heard a couple of weeks ago that showmax would be wrapping up its operations, and then
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we heard the plans by the French owners to replace showmax.
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Now we hear there is a new part in this saga, and it does feel a little bit like we're
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in an episode of Days of Our Lives.
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So the latest in the saga is that portfolio committee on communications and digital technologies,
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they're now planning special oversight to visit the broadcasting sector.
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This is after Canal Places announcement that they're going to discontinue showmax, which
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was unprofitable and costing them a lot of money, to give us the latest on this episode,
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which joined by TV and entertainment critic.
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He's also an entertainment journalist, Tennis Forever, who joins us on the line.
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Tennis, a very good warning too.
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So we now hear that Parliament seems to be planning to step in to address or begin
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involved with the showmax matter.
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We can maybe send over some great one, learn to read books.
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It seems the parliamentarians haven't really read over the past year and a half, and
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this week when they discovered that the deradorable shows on showmax are ending, they are suddenly
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up in arms and asking questions like, oh, is the end of showmax going to lead to job losses?
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And obviously the answer is yes.
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So it's not the case of the evil Stefano who abducted Marlena, but Canal Places that
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obviously promise that they're not going to retrench any multi-choice workers for
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a period of three years, but that doesn't include TV and film productions who get commissioned
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by multi-choice to make shows for service or platform like showmax, move them, don't
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get those commissions anymore.
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And then imagine, I'm asking you to make me a TV show or form the new, go in higher
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between 50 and 200 people to make youngers or spinners or something, those jobs are no longer
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going to exist because multi-choice and eminent are not going to commission that number of
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shows for showmax, because it no longer exists.
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So this week showmax also sent out a notification to tell subscribers that the last day that showmax
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will exist will be the 30th of April.
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So the last day that you can pay for that service or user voucher that you bought maybe on
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your banking app would be the 30th of March.
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And now the parliamentarians are waking up and asking a lot of these questions that they
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should have interrogated and investigated and have asked about a year and a half ago.
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And so it seems that the question mainly is coming from the EFF, secretly, secretly,
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shared, contacted the chairperson of the committee, Kusella Sangu Nidiko, and said multi-choice
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should be prepared to answer a number of questions.
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The one is the definitive timeline and rationale for ending or restructuring showmax, which
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that has been given and it's been given recently, a thorough assessment of the potential job
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losses, both at multi-choice and within the wider form and television industry.
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And then also the future of existing showmax original productions and the accessibility
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to South African viewers.
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So interesting that those are the questions that the committee is wanting to get from
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well, multi-choice and all canal plus.
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All of the political parties were actually quite greeting the questions that they asked,
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but unfortunately that horse has bolted.
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So I'm wondering in what world they love team to have not have done their proper oversight
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and duty to ask these sort of incisive questions.
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They are asking all of the right questions, unfortunately, it's just a little bit too late.
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Now once and then they had the IKASA and the competition commission who were like, oh,
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nothing was wrong or done wrong or whatever in the takeover transaction, but the competition
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commission was like, oh, we will now investigate the decisions and whether the closure of showmax
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is breaching the transaction or whatever, but of course it isn't really.
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You just can't let go of the actual multi-choice fixed appointed staff.
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So yeah, it's a little bit the cut in front of the horse belatedly.
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And so we see that there's also now the committee is going to be doing a special oversight
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visit to the broadcasting sector from the end of March to it's 31 March into the 1st of April,
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they'll do ETV multi-choice and other commercial broadcasters.
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Do we have any idea what that oversight visit will be looking for?
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Because I guess the one to multi-choice is very different to the one the ETV has not just been sold,
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whereas multi-choice has and they have new owners.
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But so any idea what those oversight visits look like?
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They usually talk to the executives, they sort of talk to the staff they've done it before
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with the SAPC as well and they sort of recently went on a set visit for the Netflix series One Piece,
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which is the most expensive show being formed and made in South Africa,
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although it's an international company, and they sort of shake hands and drink a fanta.
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And what I would really like to implore them because the SAPC staff have told me that in the past,
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when they sort of come and talk, it sort of salty cracks and a little bit of tea or whatever,
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talk to the actual staffers on the ground level, they kind of always being hidden away in the
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corridors, go and search them out and ask them how they feel, ask them what's the issues,
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they will tell you that the microphones in the radio studios at the SAPC's not working,
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don't just talk to the executives, they're going to give you sort of like a one-sided,
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very rosy story. So these parliamentarians are going to go and talk to a little bit of the
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lay of the land of commercial broadcasters, like Indian multi-choice, and I really would implore
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them to actually talk to the rank and file, and not to the more leaners and the staff and those
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who's the faces of these companies. So they're just doing commercial broadcasters, which means
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the SAPC, even though they have commercial entities, so they've got commercial radio channels and
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commercial TV channels, they're not going to be included in this round.
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No, they have previously been at the SAPC to talk there when it was the public broadcaster,
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which is kind of getting erased this time, they're not showing the news, but usually when
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one of the broadcasters are sort of involved in these headline grabbing stories, they go and sort
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of visit there, so this time it will just be the commercial broadcasters, because the issue that
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they realise is they are now starting to get worried, which they should have been a long time ago,
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about sort of this intense consolidation of our local media sphere, where there are not
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really diversity and enough companies to, when one gets taken over, basically everybody loses.
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Tiennes, there's always a great pleasure having you on the show. Thank you so much for your time.
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Thank you. That's independent TV and film critic, and journalist Tiennes,
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where we are taking us to 8 o'clock and your latest eyewitness news.