News just in ... TopTV has announced that the paycaster will be broadcasting Zapiro's controversial puppet cartoon series ZA NEWS. It'll be on
Top One in a primetime slot on Sundays at 21h00, premiering on Sunday, 11 September.
The series first launched in October 2009 and has predominently been a web based show. It's been online for three seasons. You may remember there was a
fiasco surrounding it when it debuted because the SABC put cash into it and were going to air it but then pulled out.
Between then and now the show has aired on TV too but not on mainstream channels: it's been on Cape Town TV and DStv's Summit TV. It's been tucked away, with little fanfare or weekly primetime focus.
In April this year, series director and executive producer Thierry Cassuto
told Tonight that the show was looking to land a mainstream platform in order to attract more funding for a new fourth season.
They shopped it around and TopTV's picked it up. It'll be starting from Season 4. This from the release about it:
ZA NEWS has found a new home on TopTV’s flagship channel, Top One. The weekly slot will feature some of the country’s most famous and infamous characters, who will make you laugh (and sometimes cringe) at our foibles, ourselves, our leaders and SA as a whole.
Contemporary puppet based satire shows are by no means a new idea; the British television series ‘Spitting Image’ enjoyed great success during the Conservative ruled era of the 80s and 90s, and the French equivalent ‘Les Guignols’ is still a popular television series.
Nor is ZA NEWS the only African show of its kind, as Kenya produces ‘The XYZ Show’. What all of these shows have in common though is that they are all produced locally for a local audience with puppet caricatures of mostly local politicians, celebrities and the everyman with the aim of holding a mirror to their respective societies so that the audience can look, laugh and learn.
Says Gugu Sibeko, VP of Local Content: "ZA NEWS is a strong well known South African brand. We are excited to have the programme on our platform as it is local, relevant, innovative and above all else, entertaining."
ZA NEWS producer and director Thierry Cassuto, had this to say: "Our puppets are very happy to have a weekly slot on television at last. Laughter and satire are the best antidote to doom and gloom that may result from watching other well known Sunday night shows."
ZA NEWS keeps an ear to the ground, bringing our audience a mix of the latest and most controversial current events in a witty and unorthodox way - parodying the formulaic style of media broadcasting in order to remind people that it is possible to engage humorously with societal issues that can often be a source of tension and frustration.
From Julius Malema’s ramblings to Jacob Zuma’s soothsaying and Helen Zille’s calculated tirades, ZA News captures the strange, rainbow-coloured wilderness of South African politics in our own quirky, latexed fashion. With puppets designed by renowned satirical cartoonist Zapiro, ZA News offers a scathing yet side-splitting take on the local milieu of South African life. No one is safe, but everyone is welcome.