broadcast

- "Jungle Gold" is a new Discovery Channel TV series about gold miners in Africa, premiering on Friday, Oct. 26, 2012 (10 p.m. ET/PT), according to a press release from Discovery Channel. Determined gold miners from around the world seek their fortunes in the dangerous and gold-rich jungles of Ghana, Africa's second largest gold producing country. Full story here

The South African Audience Research Foundation (SAARF) invites interested parties from the advertising, marketing and media industries and the media, to attend its Television Audience Measurement Survey (TAMS) Information Day.

The communication ministry gave a green light to new private TV channels, but critics are sceptical about their ability to compete.

The Mauritanian government last week asked the High Authority for Press and Broadcasting (HAPA) to invite all interested parties to bid for three new private TV stations.

The move is "an important positive development in the liberalisation policy of the audiovisual space initiated by the Mauritanian government last year", the communication ministry said in a statement released on October 21st.

The advertising market in the Middle East and North Africa has performed strongly this year, with Egypt, which saw a deep drop in advertising expenditure in 2011 in the wake of the revolution, leading the rebound in 2012. Egypt has also been the source of a number of new channels with pan-regional appeal.

TopTV’s acting CEO, Eddie Mbalo, looked relaxed for someone who had been in the hot seat for eight months. He was thrust into the spotlight when the pay-TV broadcaster’s founding chief, Vino Govender, left in February. The broadcaster maintains the separation was amicable, but it is clear from Mbalo’s commentary on the state of the business that all was not well with how TopTV was being run. (Stop Press: Top TV has gone into South Africa’s equivalent of administration and continues to look for a new investor.)

- Three countries that have not yet held PAMRO’s conference were proposed (Madagascar, Namibia and Zambia). Ballots were collected and counted after the meeting. The votes were announced at the Gala dinner. Madagascar received the majority of votes and will host the 2013 PAMRO conference.

- On October 11, 2012, Eutelsat has placed an order for a new satellite to offer enhanced broadcasting capacity for the Middle East and North Africa.

MultiChoice viewers of NTV Uganda can now access it on DStv Channel 283 instead of 141, following an automatic migration on the pay TV platform which occurred last week, 1 October 2012. NTV is reportedly Uganda's number one local television station and a preferred source for reliable, objective and comprehensive news, plus quality programming by the middleclass. 

The Sing Off - the popular American musical reality show – hits SA’s TV screens for the first time on SABC3 on Wednesday the 3rd of October at 8pm for 24 episodes. 

Hosted by Nick Lachey, this hugely popular show stands out from other series of its kind as it features a capella groups who do amazing things with their voices with no back-up band or safety net.

The Cape Town TV community station has lost over 600,000 viewers because its frequency was changed to accommodate digital terrestrial television trials, it said on Friday.

Station manager Karen Thorne said the free-to-air channel was relocated from channel 38 to channel 67 in March this year by the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa).

On 20th. September 2012, the Office of Radio and Television of Benin (ORTB) seized equipment at Bell Benin Communications (BBCom). The problem is that at the same time, officers seized the technical equipment of the private television Canal 3 Benin, which were kept in the premises of Bell Benin Communications (BBCom), the telecommunications operator who owns the private channel.

The issue started from a contract between BBCom and ORTB that did not seem to have been honored by the telecoms company. Beninactu.com evokes a debt of 71 million FCFA (108 000 Euros).