Friday, March 4, 2016

BREAKING. e.tv channels boss Monde Twala joins Viacom International Media Networks Africa as new vice president for BET, youth and music.


e.tv's channels boss Monde Twala has dumped the commercial free-to-air broadcaster to become the new vice president for the BET channel, youth and music at Viacom International Media Networks' growing content and channels hub in Africa.

Monde Twala will start at VIMN Africa in Johannesburg in April, leaving e.tv after 16 years.

Word leaked from inside e.tv to TVwithThinus last month that Monde Twala is packing up at e.tv and e.tv confirmed the news earlier this week on Tuesday.

The well-liked and accomplished TV producer and executive joins a growing "rat pack" at VIMN Africa where executives like Alex Okosi, Tasania Parsadh, Evert van der Veer, Dillon Khan and Tim Horwood hold sway over Viacom's set of channels including MTV Base, Comedy Central Africa, Nickelodeon Africa's channels set and BET.

VIMN Africa opened its doors a decade ago on 22 February 2005 and has since been growing and adapting its powerful youth and black urban TV content portfolio, customising it with local productions, awards and initiatives for the African continent.

VIMN Africa providing channels to the likes of MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV platform and increasing its co-production initiatives with broadcaster's like e.tv, now has the broadest brand portfolio of any international media company on the African continent, surpassing Discovery Networks International, BBC Worldwide and NBCUniversal International Networks.

In his new role at VIMN Africa, Monde Twala will be responsible for driving the growth and development of BET (DStv 129), MTV (DStv 130), MTV Base (DStv 322) and VH1 (DStv 323) across Africa.

At e.tv Monde Twala helped to create and set up e.tv's channel offering for its OpenView HD free-to-air satellite offering from Platco Digital, including local content and youth focused channels like eKasi+ and eToonz+.

"Monde Twala's proven track record, wealth of knowledge and diverse skills will add great value to our business, entrench the value of our BET and youth and music brands and accelerate the introduction of new brands and products across our portfolio," says Alex Okosi, the senior vice president and managing director at VIMN Africa.

"As we continue to build our business across the continent, Monde Twala's deep understanding of audiences and his all-round expertise of driving a diverse, multi-channel network will help us achieve our goal of being Africa's pre-eminent multi-media entertainment company".