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Speaker 1: Fuck for seven seasons. The weekend Breakfast Film and TV.

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Speaker 2: It's nine minutes before eight o'clock at the top of

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Speaker 2: the hour, get you very late to side with this news.

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Speaker 2: Then we hang out in the profile with that Mousche Anddighi.

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Speaker 2: But before that we need to talk film and TV

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Speaker 2: in a story breaking today is it seems that the

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Speaker 2: ongoing cost cutting at DStv may now impact sports commentary.

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Speaker 2: So we know super sport office commentary in a variety

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Speaker 2: of languages. My personal favorite is the cost of commentary.

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Speaker 2: It seems that Afrikaan sports commentary could be affected by

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Speaker 2: the cuts. And tell us about the story. We're joined

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Speaker 2: on the line by independent TV and film critic also

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Speaker 2: entertainment journalist Tennis Ferrera. Tennis, always a good pleasure to

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Speaker 2: have you on the show.

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Speaker 1: Good morning, hello there.

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Speaker 2: So just as context, the new owner of Multi Choice

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Speaker 2: cannot fire people, which is usually how companies kind of

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Speaker 2: reduce their running costs is by cutting down the wage board.

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Speaker 2: They cannot do this for three years. However, they can

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Speaker 2: make some decisions with regards to content divisions, et cetera.

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Speaker 2: And that's why we've seen, for instance, the decision to

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Speaker 2: do away with cho Max. Now we see Supersport also

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Speaker 2: now getting their round of pluss cutting. Is that correct?

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Speaker 2: Is that what we're seeing here?

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Speaker 1: Exactly? It all obviously started at the end of last

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Speaker 1: year when Multi Choice also mandated and taught service providers

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Speaker 1: and people giving things like cleaning services or whatever to

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Speaker 1: Multi Choice to cut the invoices that to do a

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Speaker 1: new purchase order for twenty percent less so that Canal

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Speaker 1: Plus can sort of make up that over price that

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Speaker 1: they overpaid for for Multi Choice. And also, I'll answer

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Speaker 1: your question now, but I'm literally aware of service providers

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Speaker 1: after Multi Choice and Canal Plus to all the Competition

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Speaker 1: Commission that they're rectifying it, who have still not been paid.

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Speaker 1: So literally Multi Choice and Emmet are lied to the

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Speaker 1: Competition Commission. You're exactly right, they are now looking at

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Speaker 1: all other ways of cutting back because they are on

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Speaker 1: a very aggressive cost cutting exercise over the next three years.

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Speaker 1: So a lot of the bells and whistles that the

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Speaker 1: STV subscribers have been used to are very likely going

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Speaker 1: to disappear.

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Speaker 2: And so then how have commentators who do this the

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Speaker 2: sports commentary have they been made aware? How are they

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Speaker 2: made aware of the fact that this could be one

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Speaker 2: of the next cuts to programming at the STB.

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Speaker 1: So they are also independent contractors, they're not full time

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Speaker 1: employed by Supersport and I spoke to several commentators and

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Speaker 1: people with knowledge of the situation. One person told me

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Speaker 1: that teams have been informed that with certain series, especially

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Speaker 1: with cricket, Canal Plus will no longer make Afrikaans or

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Speaker 1: cause our commentary available on the ESCV at all due

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Speaker 1: to diget cuts and for interests. With the latest tour

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Speaker 1: of the Proteas two New Zealand, Canal Class Africa Sports

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Speaker 1: management team said that Supersport will no longer broadcast, let's say,

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Speaker 1: for instants, African commentary because the times is what a

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Speaker 1: stupid reason that the matches are shown are too early

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Speaker 1: for the STV viewers. So there's apparently not enough viewers

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Speaker 1: who might for some of these sports matches, whatever they

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Speaker 1: might be, make it worthwhile to provide that service for.

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Speaker 2: Right And so I'm a little bit confused about I

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Speaker 2: guess the thing that it's too early. Certainly with international fixtures,

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Speaker 2: people who watch sport will wake up early, so someone

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Speaker 2: who likes Formula one, they would have been up just

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Speaker 2: over an hour ago because it was lights out in

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Speaker 2: Japan at seven in the morning. That seems like such

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Speaker 2: a strange unless their numbers show that when they put

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Speaker 2: games early, they don't have the viewership that would justify

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Speaker 2: the cost of those games. But I feel as those

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Speaker 2: fans of international sports, no games early and they wake

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Speaker 2: up no, and you are.

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Speaker 1: Actually antagonizing sort of the super fan or the person

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Speaker 1: who is super involved in following sports a type of sports,

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Speaker 1: or a type of action or a type of broadcast.

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Speaker 1: I also spoke to a media expert, Professor Levett Raber

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Speaker 1: at the Stalinbosh University this week and she said it's

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Speaker 1: sort of a scaling back of language, especially in terms

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Speaker 1: of terminology in other languages that people year and year

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Speaker 1: being used. And what was also so striking she said

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Speaker 1: to me precisely the French, you take such visible offense

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Speaker 1: if you sort of try to communicate with them in English,

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Speaker 1: are the very people who should know the importance of

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Speaker 1: the use of language in the environment. And now they

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Speaker 1: are doing exactly what they don't want in France to

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Speaker 1: South Africa.

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Speaker 2: Right, and so then if now we're seeing this cutback

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Speaker 2: of certain languages and Afrikaans, the Kassa. What does that

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Speaker 2: mean then, for does the English commentary stay the same

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Speaker 2: any changes there?

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Speaker 1: No, not only English because that's usually part of the

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Speaker 1: original soundtrack, so that's not going to change. It's just

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Speaker 1: sort of like all of these additional extra things which

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Speaker 1: are in danger of disappearing. I did ask Supersport, did

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Speaker 1: ask Canal Plus for comment, and obviously they didn't comment

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Speaker 1: at all, as in the past when I asked him

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Speaker 1: sort of about these matters, and it remains to be

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Speaker 1: seen what else might be taken away. I think they

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Speaker 1: might also, just like in France, come to an understanding

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Speaker 1: that they may be underestimated South Africans and how strong

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Speaker 1: people feel about language and their content. And it remains

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Speaker 1: to be seen what which of these cost cutting measures

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Speaker 1: they might go ahead with or not. But they did

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Speaker 1: stop the invoicing where they demnited twenty percent cut after

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Speaker 1: media exposure that was really negative towards Canal Plus and

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Speaker 1: Multi Choice and m NEX. So yeah, we'll have to

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Speaker 1: see what happened.

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Speaker 2: I see that there's also an impact on other Afrikaans programming,

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Speaker 2: so not just the sports commentary. It appears that there's

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Speaker 2: also been an impact on mnet's Afrikaans, So Saint Worcester,

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Speaker 2: which is on geting it tell us about that.

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Speaker 1: Not even that sort of program all kinds of programming

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Speaker 1: that was still supposed to be loaded and made available.

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Speaker 1: People obviously have paid until the city of April when

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Speaker 1: Showmats closes down, but customers are no longer going to

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Speaker 1: get their value for that money. So even this past week,

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Speaker 1: the first episode of the two episode series documentary series

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Speaker 1: The People Versus VBS Bank was supposed to be released

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Speaker 1: on show Max and it's no longer happening. And my

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Speaker 1: understanding is because show Max was done in partnership with

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Speaker 1: NBC Universal, it was the American people who loaded the content,

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Speaker 1: and when they were laid off and basically fired, they

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Speaker 1: just gone. So show Mats can no longer load that

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Speaker 1: content those new episodes for show max viewers who actually

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Speaker 1: have paid for that, and show Match confirmed and said

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Speaker 1: to me no new titles are being loaded onto the

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Speaker 1: platform that obviously didn't give the reason, and then they

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Speaker 1: said over people can will still be able to get

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Speaker 1: the content if they use DStv stream, but for that

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Speaker 1: you have to pay for at least d STV Family,

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Speaker 1: which costs three hundred grand, which is twice as expensive

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Speaker 1: as show macs. That's ninety nine rand. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Sure, such interesting development at Multichas, and I imagine we'll

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Speaker 2: see more kind of reconfiguring off the lineup of the

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Speaker 2: program more as the owners continue to, you know, look

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Speaker 2: to make those changes. Tiannis, as always, it is great

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Speaker 2: to chat to you. Thank you so much for your

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Speaker 2: time this morning.

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Speaker 1: Thank you.

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Speaker 2: That's an independent TV and phone critic, Tennis Perera. He's

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Speaker 2: also an entertainment journalist joining us this morning. I'd love

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Speaker 2: to share your thoughts on the changes coming to sports

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Speaker 2: commentary to Super Sport. Maybe you're someone who watches said

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Speaker 2: URSA tell us about how you're feeling about the abrupt

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Speaker 2: end of the series or a lack of episodes, and

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Speaker 2: it threw to us. I know seven two, seven oh

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Speaker 2: two one, seven oh two coming up. We hang out

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Speaker 2: with TV personality Moche and Diki. But first it's eight

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Speaker 2: o'clock time, very latest Eye Witness news