Radio & TV

EbonyLife TV leaves DSTV for StarTimes

Published

4 years ago

July 2, 2018

EbonyLife TV is proud to announce that from August 1, 2018, they will be broadcasting on the StarTimes network (Satellite 191 and Digital Terrestrial 107), thereby ending its exclusive arrangement with DStv. StarTimes is a leading multinational media company with a strong presence in Africa, operating in 30 countries and with over 10 million subscribers. The partnership with StarTimes is a bid to provide premium, homegrown content to a larger audience across Africa. In addition to expansion of its linear television audience, EbonyLife has launched a global, digital video-on-demand (VoD) service, EbonyLife ON, that allows Nigerian subscribers, who cannot afford expensive satellite TV, to watch its high-quality content for as little as N500 per month. Viewers in the diaspora have already been accessing the service for $2.99 per month. Mo Abudu, CEO of EbonyLife TV is thrilled about the global expansion. “This is an exciting time for us. StarTimes is a force to be reckoned with in Africa. It is a privilege for EbonyLife to have an additional home with the network. Together with the global reach of EbonyLife ON, we will have the potential for millions more people to enjoy our gripping dramas, riveting talk and fun entertainment shows,” she said. Justin Zhang, MD of StarTimes, shares similar sentiments with Abudu. “EbonyLife TV is synonymous with quality, which is important to us. As one of Nigeria’s leading television networks, it made sense to include them in the StarTimes family and to continue delighting customers with engaging, original content,” he said. This collaboration is a win-win for both parties – StarTimes will improve its offering by providing an additional, first-rate channel to users and EbonyLife TV gets an opportunity to broadcast to an even greater number of viewers. EbonyLife ON is now available online to viewers in Nigeria and the rest of Africa.]]>

Radio & TV

All You Should Know About Showmax’s First Nigerian Original Limited Drama Series, Diiche!

Published

13 hours ago

September 29, 2022

Ameyaw Debrah

Showmax’s first-ever Nigerian original limited drama series, Diiche, premieres exclusively on the platform today, September 29, 2022. (more…)

Buzz

African fantasy series Blood Psalms premieres on Showmax with glowing reviews

Published

15 hours ago

September 29, 2022

Ameyaw Debrah

Khanya Mkangisa as Nymph in Blood Psalms

The first two episodes of Blood Psalms, the first Showmax Original fantasy series, are now streaming. Early reviews are glowing, withTVMzansi calling it, “Without doubt, the best TV show ever created in Africa”; Leon van Nierop “the biggest and most spectacular production of a local series yet” and TimesLive “African fantasy at its finest.”

Set in ancient Africa, the action-packed epic follows Princess Zazi (Bokang Phelane) as she battles a world-ending prophecy to navigate her people through ancient curses, long-standing tribal vendettas and the wrath of the gods.

“Watching it feels as thrilling as being an astronaut exploring new worlds,” says Genevieve Terblanche from tvplus. “The sheer scope of Blood Psalms is breathtaking.”

On TVSA, Movies And Things With Tha-Bang writes, “What Jahmil XT Qubeka and Layla Swart have achieved with Blood Psalms is something that will go down on SA TV history books like the Yizo Yizo and Intersexions of the world, series that came and changed the game when folks least expected it.”

Swart and Qubeka were responsible for South African Oscar entries Knuckle City and Sew The Winter To My Skin. Qubeka also directed Of Good Report, which won seven SAFTAs, including Best Film and Best Director, and Stillborn, which won the SAFTA for Best Short Film.

They’ve assembled an incomparable cast, with nine SAFTA winners – Bongile Mantsai, Hamilton Dlamini, Hlubi Mboya, Mothusi Magano, S’dumo Mtshali, Siv Ngesi, Thishiwe Ziqubu, Warren Masemola and Zolisa Xaluva – and all your faves, from Enhle Mbali Mlotshwa to Lemogang Tsipa, Faith Baloyi to Faniswa Yisa, Mandisa Nduna to Niza Jay, Richard Lukunku to Sello Maake Ka Ncube, Thabo Rametsi to Thando Thabethe, Thembikile Komani to Zikhona Sodlaka, and many more.

We caught up with the most ambitious filmmakers in Africa to find out more about Yellowbone Entertainment’s first Showmax Original, which is already topping the charts on Africa’s homegrown streaming service:

Where did the idea for Blood Psalms come from?

Qubeka: I was just always extremely curious about our continent. The question mark around the history of Africa, and where we come from, has been a great platform for us to be able to build this world.

Swart: I think Blood Psalms is a yearning more than anything else. It’s a look at a history that has never been depicted before, that we always wanted to see.

When is Blood Psalms set?

Qubeka: 11 000 years ago. Blood Psalms is an action adventure series that invites us into a world that no longer exists, a time before the Great Flood changed the world.

Swart: Blood Psalms draws from elements of a multitude of African mythologies and looks at various different tribes in Season 1 – the Akachi, the Uchawi, the Ku’ua, the Chini, and Great Nziwemabwe – as they migrated south from Kemet, which is now Egypt, and formed their cultures.

Qubeka: These tribes moved southward, running away from the calamity that was happening in Kemet and Kush, which is what we now know as northern Sudan. There are remnants even today that show that there was a great civilization and a great culture that comes from that space.

Which tribe do you focus on the most?

Swart: The tribal focus in season one is House Akachi, run by the eccentric King Letsha [four-time SAFTA winner Mothusi Magano].

Qubeka: We look at this world through the eyes of his daughter, a young Akachi princess by the name of Zazi [Bokang Phelane], as she goes on her own quest to find a sense of self in a rapidly evaporating world.

How do you feel about the inevitable Game of Thrones comparisons?

Qubeka: If they want to call it the African Game of Thrones, I’ll take that mantle on. If you love Game of Thrones, you’re gonna love this show.

But what we really want to do is create heroic archetypes for the African child. If you look across the entire landscape of cinema and television, there are no archetypes for the African child.

Swart: It’s a pioneering show that attempts to redefine our very perception of our identity as Africans. What we’re trying to do is to reclaim the continent’s history from an African perspective. The goal, for us, is to ensure that the golden thread of Africa’s stunning history really shines.

Qubeka: If we don’t start to project an image of how we see ourselves, someone else is going to do that for us.

There are very few references for Africa 11,000 years ago. Was this freeing or challenging?

Swart: Building a world that doesn’t exist has been enormously creative. Doing something set 11,000 years ago has really given us all collectively the scope to just play.

But it’s also enormously challenging. Every single costume, every single piece of the set had to be conceived and made from scratch.

Qubeka: I’m very excited to see how audiences engage this world. There’s a lot of things that people are going to look at and be like, ‘What are you talking about? Did they have guns in that time? Do they have electricity?’ There’s all sorts of things that we challenge in terms of conventions, of what people understand of our glorious past.

Where did you shoot in the Eastern Cape?

Qubeka: So the Akachi Citadel actually sits above the Hole in the Wall but we shot parts of the Citadel in different locations. For example, the big dam in Graaff-Reinet is incorporated as the Citadel dam, situated at the back end of the city.

What I really loved about shooting in the Eastern Cape is that it just brought a whole other dimension to what we were intending to achieve.

The epic scale of places like Coffee Bay and the Valley of Desolation – just the size and scale of these places – makes you feel so insignificant, so small, so we’re able to get an essence of what it could have been like 11,000 years ago on this continent.

Why should audiences watch your show?

Qubeka: It’s a sweeping epic adventure that doesn’t hold back. It is definitely a large canvas, one that I personally have not seen from this continent. This thing is big.

Now streaming, first on Showmax

Shot in the Eastern Cape, Gauteng and North West provinces, Blood Psalms is a Showmax Original in partnership with CANAL+, the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition, the Eastern Cape Economic Development Corporation (ECDC), the National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) and the MultiChoice Innovation Fund, which supports South Africa’s most exciting entrepreneurs, enabling them to bring their unique, innovative and creative business ideas to life.

Showmax will drop new episodes of Blood Psalms every Wednesday until the end of November 2022.

Join Swart for an InstaLive on producing as part of the Showmax x Actor Spaces masterclasses at 6pm on Thursday, 29 September 2022 at https://www.instagram.com/actorspaces/.

Watch Layla Swart’s Showmax x Actor Spaces masterclass on producing:

https://youtu.be/iMd7wsJI210

Add Blood Psalms to your Showmax watchlist:

https://www.showmax.com/eng/tvseries/376jbv7a-blood-psalms

Watch the new trailer:

https://youtu.be/1s2qWQXAw1A

Join the conversation:

#BloodPsalmsShowmax

Radio & TV

Showmax confirms The Real Housewives of Nairobi, slated to begin production in September

Published

1 week ago

September 21, 2022

Ameyaw Debrah

African streaming service Showmax, in partnership with NBCUniversal Formats, is bringing The Real Housewives to Nairobi.

The Real Housewives of Nairobi, which will debut in 2023 as a Showmax Original, is the 22nd international version of The Real Housewives format and the sixth to be adapted in Africa.

The Real Housewives of Nairobi builds on the success of other African franchises like The Real Housewives of Johannesburg, which was one of the 10 most streamed domestic series on Showmax in 2019, as well as Durban (RHOD) and Lagos (RHOLagos), which both broke records on Showmax and were trending #1 on Twitter in their respective countries.

Denise Mwende, Showmax Content Specialist in East Africa, said: “As an African streaming platform, Showmax is dedicated to telling diverse African stories, and celebrity reality TV remains a genre that excites our viewers across Africa. We love to watch other people’s lives, and The Real Housewives of Nairobi is a chance to get a much closer look at Nairobi’s elite.”

The Real Housewives of Nairobi is being produced by Eugene Mbugua’s D&R Studios (formerly Young Rich Television), the production company behind Kenya’s biggest docu-reality shows and Showmax favourites like the 2021 Kalasha nominee Sol Family; the 2021 Kalasha nominee and 2022 Africa Magic Viewers’ Choice (AMVCA) nominee This Love; 2022 reality series Kyallo Kulture; 2018 Kalasha nominee Stori Yangu and 2019 Kalasha winner Our Perfect Wedding.

“The team at D&R Studios is very stoked about the opportunity to produce The Real Housewives of Nairobi,” said Mbugua. “We’ve had a long and good relationship with Showmax, and are very excited to now be working together on an international format. We’ve gone through a very rigorous process of being shortlisted and are now geared up and ready to start production.”

“D&R Studios already has a portfolio of celebrity reality content like Sol Family, This Love and Kyallo Kulture under their belt. They understand the structure, and are willing to work hand in hand with our local teams and NBCUniversal to bring the Nairobi franchise to life,” added Denise Mwende.

On what the audience can expect with Nairobi, following the success of other African franchises, Mbugua said, “There’s quite a bit of pressure from the audience to deliver a stellar show but if what we’ve seen in the casting process is anything to go by, Nairobi promises to hold its own. Fans can expect surprises in everything, from the choice of the cast to the storylines. The Real Housewives of Nairobi is going to be the show to watch.”

As you wait for The Real Housewives of Nairobi, you can binge-watch these African franchises on Showmax: The Real Housewives of Lagos, The Real Housewives of Durban S1-2 and The Real Housewives of Johannesburg S1-2.

Radio & TV

This Week On Miss Malaika Ghana – Our Culture, Our Heritage!!

Published

2 weeks ago

September 17, 2022

Ameyaw Debrah

This Week On Miss Malaika Ghana – Our Culture, Our Heritage!!

In an immature society culture is an import; for a mature one it is a native manufacture which eventually becomes an export. – Northrop Frye. (more…)

Radio & TV

Apple Music’s Africa Now Radio features K.O this Friday !

Published

2 weeks ago

September 15, 2022

Ameyaw Debrah

This Week’s Episode Features a Conversation With K.O, the 5 Hottest Tracks of the Week, Africa Rising and Dadaboy Ehiz’s Favourite Track of the Week! (more…)