distribution

- Ster-Kinekor Movie Theatres has launched a new concept cinema to its audience, Cine Prestige, which opened yesterday 3 April 2012 at the Zone in Rosebank, Johannesburg. Likened to a 'business-class experience', it has 38 spacious single recliner leather seats and five double leather recliners for cosy dates, totalling a seating capacity for 48 patrons. Back on 29 March 2012, Ster-Kinekor also opened eight new cinemas at the refurbished Blue Route Mall in Tokai, Cape Town, including a 3D screen.

Joining the South African films currently on release at the local box office - Material, Semi-Soet and Ordinary People - is the newbie, A Million Colours, which is a sequel to the 1975 apartheid era classic, e’Lollipop.

A Million Colours released over the weekend of 27 to 29 April with 51 prints and made R229,814.

Ordinary People (19 prints) has been on release for four weeks and has made R2.2m to date.

South African local content pay-TV channel Mzansi Magic has announced that the channel’s first telenovela Inkaba is now available to audiences in Sub-Saharan Africa, including countries such as Angola, Botswana, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Mozambique and Uganda.

To protect its flanks from attacks by competitors targeting the middle and low-end consumers of pay-tv services, TV subscription company, Multichoice recently floated a new television company, GOtv.

- Orange and Canal+ Africa -present in 20 countries across Africa- have signed an agreement by which Canal+ subscribers in Africa will be able to use Orange Money to renew their contract.

A campaign to get more Namibians to pay their television licences has led to the NBC collecting N$15.9 million in licence fees last year, 16 per cent more than it did the previous year. However, the national broadcaster didn't meet the target of N$18 million it had set for itself.

"It will probably be tomorrow's headlines - 'NBC misses target. DG's bonus compromised'," Albertus Aochamub, director general of the NBC, said tongue-in-cheek last week at the ceremony to announce the prize winners of the broadcaster's TV licence competition.

THEMA *, which specializes in the distribution of ethnic TV channels, is pleased to announce an agreement with Virgin France for the distribution of 47 channels. Within the framework of its new quadruple play offer (Telephony- Broadband- TV- Mobile) the 1st MVNO of the French market, broadcasts 47 "ethnic" TV channels addressing the main foreign communities from Arabic countries, Africa, Germany, Comoros islands, Turkey, Russia and Greece.

- ESPN has made the announced of a new deal with the Australian Football League (AFL) to bring viewers live television coverage of the AFL Premiership in the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, Canada and sub-saharan Africa. Additionally, it has secured co-exclusive live television rights in the Caribbean and Israel.

- Just 3 day’s before AFL’s official launch (see story 1 in this section),

BBC Worldwide unveiled major wildlife series Planet Earth Live today at MIPTV.

The corporation described it as the biggest live wildlife broadcast they had ever undertaken. The series is being made by the BBC’s Natural History Unit and is billed as “an epic live story following the critical life stages in some of the Earth’s most charismatic animals”.

A24 Media has formed a partnership with NBS News in India. With this, news coverage from the Indian sub-continent will be made available to emerging Africa. It will also create an opportunity for Indian broadcasters to access A24 Media’s coverage of the African continent.