The new
Crime & Investigation Network debuted on DStv Channel 69 last night, and launched with a bang at a press event in Johannesburg.
Upon arrival at the scene journalists were met with an array of bodies, police, crime scenes, yellow tape, reporters, S.W.A.T. teams and detectives, before a countdown to the official first broadcast of the network at 18h00.
Getting into our role as bewildered reporters we decided to make use of the situation to interrogate some of the network bigwigs about the sort of fare viewers can expect on the channel.
The first pressing question we had was directed at the vice president of the History Channel, Geoff Metzger.
We wanted to know whether the channel was going to be a rehash of the dated, formulaic drivel that props up the Zone Reality channel, and whether we could expect the dregs of Europe's crime shows to filter down to us ala BBC Prime.
Metzger's answers were suspicious. He denied our startling allegations with perhaps a little too much vehemence, whitening like a man condemned to death as we leaned in for the kill, waiting for him to get his story wrong.
As if by way of reinforcement Metzger summonsed the Director of the Crime & Investigation Network, Richard Melmann, and told him about our ridiculous fears, and just like a good cop/bad cop duo Melmann calmed us down and won us over.
He promised that the network considers the African market as
very important, and that we will be getting nothing but quality original documentaries and series that have never been aired in South Africa.
No show will have been seen before, although there will be one or two crossovers with the History Channel (new episodes only). No dregs ala BBC Prime.
According to The Suits the programmes will be in-depth because of their association with the History channel, and the sort of depressing, disposable shows of Zone Reality will never find their way to the C&I Network.
There will also be a strong focus on local programming, although once again - no old South African crime shows will be dug out of dusty archives and rusted, hospital-green filing cabinets - all of it will be new stuff.
A number of local crime productions will be made in association with Urban Brew.
The first local programming to look forward to is Missing, a series of short inserts about missing people in South Africa. A documentary about South Africa's most infamous serial killer, Moses Sithole, will be the first major local show on the network.
We were told that there won't be any drama shows on the network - only documentary-style shows and series. The reason for this is that the network feels their speciality does not lie in creating drama shows, and they will stick to their area of expertise, which is documentaries and narrative storytelling.
We nodded, made painstaking notes, examined a stain on the couch with a magnifying glass, then tipsily made our way outside to light up our evil briar pipe, while ruminating on the day's events.
Somewhere, far off in the distance, a dog howled sadly at the moon.
The Crime & Investigation Network airs on Channel 69 on DStv from midday until 06h00 the next morning.