Thursday, March 26, 2015

Bonang Matheba dumps Sun International and M-Net's Miss South Africa 2015 as judge to attend Viacom's Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards 2015.


After having been announced as a judge for the Miss South Africa 2015 pageant presenter Bonang Matheba dumped Sun International to rather attend Viacom's Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards 2015 taking place in Saturday in Los Angeles.

The Miss South Africa 2015 pageant will be broadcast live this Sunday, 28 March on M-Net (DStv 101) and Mzansi Magic (DStv 161) at 17:30, with the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards 2015 taking place on Saturday in Los Angeles.

The Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards 2015 will be broadcast on Nickelodeon (DStv 305) a few days later in South Africa and Africa on Wednesday 1 April at 16:00.

Bonang Matheba is a nominee in the localised add-on category of Favourite South African Radio DJ" to help market the American awards show in South Africa.

Bonang Matheba's announcement as judge, only for her to withdraw and jet off to Los Angeles for a better made-for-TV special is highly embarrassing for Sun International as the Miss South Africa 2015 organisers.

Sun International through its PR agency, Ninesquared Communications, announced on 14 March that Bonang Matheba will be a judge of Miss South Africa 2015, just as she was in 2014.

After that announcement, Bonang Matheba jetted off this week to Los Angeles for the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards 2015, leaving the judging chair with her name on it at Sun City empty.

Ninesquared Communications on Thursday didn't respond with an answer to a media enquiry as to how Sun International feels about Bonang Matheba agreeing to be a judge and then pulling out.

In a statement on Thursday Bonang Matheba said she has "stepped down as judge of the Miss South Africa 2015 pageant taking place at Sun City this weekend due to an urgent international commitment", confirming that she dumped the local pageant show.

"It is unfortunate that I had to step down as Miss South Africa judge due to an urgent overseas work commitment".

It's not clear, and Bonang Matheba failed to explain, why she committed to be a Miss South Africa 2015 judge if she knew prior to this commitment and announcement of her being a judge that she is going to, or must go to the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards 2015 for Viacom International Media Networks International Africa (VIMN Africa).

Likewise if Bonang Matheba was only asked to attend the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards 2015 after the decision was made to be a Miss South Africa 2015 judge, is strange that she would dump and cancel on an existing diarised commitment for an apparently "better" one.