Vuzu shakes up presenter lineup

Vuzu yesterday (March 18th, 2016) announced that they have added three new presenters to their lineup. At the same time, the channel announced that Denise Zimba and Shelton Forbes will both be leaving the channel to 'pursue other interests.'

The three new faces on Vuzu are as follows:
Nomuzi Mabena
Earlier this year MTV announced a VJ search to replace Nomuzi, who has decided to pursue other things. What we now know is that those other things is a stint as part of the Vuzu family. Interestingly, Nomuzi, who is also a singer, departed from her record label earlier this week due to differences in their creative direction. [I find it strange that someone as established as Nomuzi would join Vuzu which has always been a platform for young up and coming talents.]

Dash
Member of hip hop trio, Dreamteam. Dreamteam also presented Friday's edition of V Entertainment as part of the programme's ongoing series of guest presenters on Fridays.

Shane Eagle
A former contestant on the channel's talent search show, The Hustle.

Interestingly, all of these new presenters are singers trying to make it in the industry, while now also reporting on the entertainment industry. You don't expect politicians to report on politics for obvious reasons so why Vuzu insists on having musicians report on the entertainment industry is weird.

The three new presenters join Lalla Hiriyama (who has been with the channel since inception) and DJ Speedsta (who has been with the channel since earlier this year). the five of them will split presenting and reporting for V Entertainment (Monday to Friday, 6pm on Vuzu and VuzuAMP) and V Prime (Monday to Friday 6:30pm to 9:30pm on VuzuAMO) between them.

Commenting on the decision to include more faces to the brand, Head of Reality and Entertainment at M-Net Local Entertainment Channels, Sphumelele Sibeko says “VUZU AMP is a young , innovative brand that is synonymous with all things fresh. We understand that we need to keep reinventing the brand through its people.”

The new lineup, known as the #Vuzu5, officially debuts on April 1st to coincide with the new season of V Entertainment.

The reaction to the new lineup has been largely negative, with many on social media complaining about viewer favourite, Denise Zimba, who has been a presenter since 2013, being cut. Since the announcement was made, Denise has been retweeting viewers' complaining about her being cut without directly mentioning it herself. Late last year Denise was cut from the soap Generations as well.

Cyprian Ndlovu Departs Vuzu

Cyprian Ndlovu is no longer a presenter at MNet's Vuzu channels, where he was one of the hosts of V Entertainment and V Prime.

He departs from Vuzu roughly a year after starting early in January 2014 at just 20 years old.

Prior to being a Vuzu presenter, Cyprian was a finalist in the 2013 edition of MTV Base's VJ search.

Fans wont have to wait long to see him again, though, as he will start appearing in eTV's Rythm City from March this year.

Siyabonga Ngwekasi, who returned to the show late last year when it relaunched to host an episode every now and then will now appear more frequently to fill the gap left by Cyprian.

REVIEW: Vuzu Relaunches Flagship Daily Entertainment News Show, V Entertainment

Vuzu presenter Shelton Forbes in the channel's new studio

M-net's youth-centric brand, Vuzu, today launched the "amplified" version of its daily flagship entertainment news shows, V Entertainment. The relaunch of the show coincides with the launch of the second Vuzu channel, Vuzu Amp, which is available exclusively to DStv Premium subscribers.

As part of the show's relaunch, the show finally moved into a real studio, dropping the green screen that was used for the greater part of its history (They did have a dull real studio at launch in 2009, but it was dropped at the end of their first season). The new studio, mostly in glossy black with pink elements and with multiple cameras, is a welcomed upgrade from the single camera green screen format that had been used in the past.

The new graphics is also more well done than previously though nothing very special.

For the relaunch, the show was hosted by three presenters instead of just one, the three longest running presenters on the show. In order of length as a presenter, they were Siyabonga "Scoop" Ngwekazi, Lalla Hirayama and Dineo Moeketsi. However, Siya's appearance was billed as a special appearance since he officially left the show a few months ago when he moved to Channel O to launch Turn Up. Vuzu does, however, say that Siya will be appearing on the show sporadically in the future.

New graphics, a new studio, being broadcast in High Definition and having three presenters instead of one did not save what was a terrible show, content-wise at least, when compared to what viewers had come to expect from V Entertainment. Instead of being the jam packed entertainment news show viewers had come to expect, the show seemed to be filled with more banter between presenters and the promotion of what will now become a daily poll on the show than anything else. By 22 minutes after the start of the show, it was all over and they played out with a new music video from singing sensation, Bucie.

They just spent way too much time talking about a poll that does not belong on this show. Yes, social networking integration is good, but that should have remained on the V Prime segments.

Reviews on social networks for the new V Entertainment are mixed. The only thing people are complimenting from the show is its set, while those that critiqued the content side of the show, what the show should really be about, described it as a "yawnfest," and rightfully so.

The manner in which the channel promoted the relaunch of the show, though not giving specifics, made it seem as if, heck, the show was being improved, but that was definitely not what happened.

As a tv channel (a medium of communication), one would expect the channel to communicate details about the relaunch ahead of time, but that was totally not the case. Before today, it was not known whether the show would remain in the 6pm time slot or change time slots. The show's timeslot became even more questionable this past Sunday when on Idols, Proverb said that it would air at 5pm instead. Up until today it was never confirmed whether the V-Prime segments that air throughout primetime would air on Vuzu or Vuzu Amp with the channel only today announcing the finer details of the whole situation. It is even unclear as to how many presenters will be presenting the show from tomorrow. One? Two? More?

Going forward, V Entertainment has a lot of room for improvement, the only sad part about that is that the room for improvement after today's show is greater than that of prior episodes of a show that wasn't in need of a fix now being broken.