9 February, 2017 - 07:25
Controversy is swirling around the upcoming 11th South African Film and Television Awards (Saftas) as the countrys soaps, including last year's winner, are once again boycotting the awards show, slamming the Saftas as just not fair. by Thinus Ferreira
Both SABC2s Muvhango - for the second year in a row and the third time overall - as well as ironically last years winner, SABC1s Skeem Saam, have refused to enter the 2017 Saftas, with the ongoing boycott again denting the Saftas credibility.
Because Muvhango and Skeem Saam refused to enter the Saftas that ironically this year has the theme SAs got it, lets celebrate it - the National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) that organises the Saftas removed both Muvhango and Skeem Saam from the Most Popular TV Soap category.
Its the category where a viewers vote is supposed to decide the winner although viewers in reality will yet again be unable to choose one of the soaps that they really might want to vote for.
When it comes to popularity in terms of South African TV viewership, ironically the Venda soap Muvhango, produced by Word of Mouth productions, remains the most watched soap and show on all of SABC2 with roughly 6.2 million viewers. Meanwhile Skeem Saam pulls 5.9 million viewers - the third most watched show on all of SABC1.
Overall Muvhango and Skeem Saam respectively are the third and fourth most popular and most watched TV shows on all of South African television. Each soap respectively also commands a 60% or bigger share. It means that two out of three of all the TV sets switched on during their broadcast timeslots, are tuned to these shows.
This year viewers will however suddenly be able to vote for SABC1s Uzalo that was also missing from last years options. The 2017 Saftas has now included it in the Most Popular TV Soap category for the first time. Last year the Saftas said Uzalo was a drama.
Critics contend that TV shows shouldnt be forced to enter the Saftas just to be eligible for recognition of their work and that the 181 judges, presumably chosen because of their expertise and knowing film and television, should be watching shows and films throughout the year anyway and know quality work and what had been shown.
The Saftas has been the subject of repeated criticism every year about how the award show is run, how shows are nominated and selected, how theyre judged, who the judges are and over the perceived exclusion of women, minorities and smaller - especially black - producers.
Broadcasters including e.tv, M-Net and the SABC, along with several soaps, have previously taken turns to boycott the Saftas and criticise it for issues ranging from credibility, and a lack of inclusivity and diversity, to its compromised judging process and a lack of transformation.
Last year the Saftas in a statement admitted that urgent attention is required to transform the industry and ensure that the Saftas become more inclusive.
The contentious Saftas previously locked out 7de Laan (2012), Binnelanders and Villa Rosa (2013) and Muvhango (2014) from the Most Popular Soap category for the shows refusal to enter in categories. In 2012 e.tv pulled its soaps Rhythm City and Scandal! as well as all its other shows from the Saftas.
Little effort to improve the judging process
As to why Muvhango is boycotting the Saftas again, Muvhango associate producer Morishe Matlejoane told Channel24 that our stance remains as is.
There has been little if any effort from the organisers to improve the judging process or allowing the public vote to hold rank. We remain stern in our views until a significant change is noticed. As mentioned previously, we seek to protect the integrity of our hard working crew and actors from the narrow views of a few individuals. Its just not fair.
Last year Muvhango slammed the Saftas for its unstandardised judging system, with Matlejoane in 2016 saying that there has been growing skepticism around the process followed by the organisers.
In any contest where judges are selected within the system and not independently set to be true independent critics, there will always be room to question. The Saftas are not independently run to fully encompass every broadcast to give a true reflection of the South African TV landscape.
There are people working alongside those who are nominated, people working for rival production companies, which all leads to major credibility issues.
The NFVF hasnt yet responded with answers to questions in a media enquiry made last week Thursday, seeking comment on things like what the Saftas has done to improve the process since Muvhango boycotted the award show last year, the damage to the credibility of the Saftas and the NFVFs views on the ongoing boycott of SA TV shows of the awards show.
In an earlier statement announcing the move to Sun City and the North West province, Zama Mkosi, NFVF CEO, says that the Saftas are anticipating a very successful and mesmerising 11th Saftas that South Africa can enjoy and experience with us.
For the 2017 Saftas the NFVF dumped categories like Best Sports Show, Best Animation film and Best TV animation, saying South Africa lacks adequate submissions in these TV and film fields. Categories to reward work within news and actuality remain almost non-existent with no recognition of TV news anchors and TV journalists.
The 2017 Saftas added Best TV Talk show host and Best Micro film as new categories, as well as the New Discretionary Award going to a youth achiever.
The 2017 South African Film and Television Awards will be broadcast live on SABC2 on 18 March.
www.channel24.co.za
Film Festivals
Africa South Africa
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
9 February, 2017 - 07:25 
