You're reading it here first.
TV with Thinus can exclusively break news I've worked on for weeks, which is that the longrunning SABC3 weekday soap Isidingo - in a massive timeslot shake-up - will move from Monday 3 October an hour later to its new timeslot of 19:30 - permanently.
The Isidingo timeslot change is part of a massive realignment of the SABC3 daytime as well as evening schedule. I'm exclusively told by sources that the permanent change for Isidingo coming from October from 18:30 to 19:30 was finally decided on by channel executives after a major positive viewer response as well as viewership growth for the struggling soap in the cutthroat 18:30 weekday timeslot where the soap hasn't managed to regain its former glory days.
The reason d'etre for the Isidingo move is twofold: the SABC plans to move The Bold and the Beautiful from SABC1 to SABC3. From October The Bold and the Beautiful that will for the time being remain on SABC1 is moving its timeslot from 18:00 to 18:30 (my exclusive story RIGHT HERE) - straight into the current Isidingo timeslot. From there, when the American soap finally jumps from SABC1 to SABC3 it will already be in the same or ''right'' timeslot and just move channels. The impact on viewership is (then) lessened by doing the bait-and-switch in smaller changes as having to do a channel as well as a timeslot change at once.
Secondly I'm told that SABC3 believes that Isidingo can bring in higher viewership later when the Endemol South Africa production is not competing with major and numerous other local soaps in the same overheated timeslot for eyeballs - especially from e.tv.
''The SABC is in essence replacing one soap at 18:30 with another,'' an SABC executive tells me, ''hoping that the one [Bold] will get a greater share at 18:30 when more people are home, and that the other one [Isidingo] will get a greater share even later when there's less competition.''
SABC insiders tell me exclusively that the feeling within the SABC has been for a time that Isidingo can no longer effectively compete in the tough 18:30 timeslot against other channel's highly popular soaps. Executives at the public broadcaster believe that the soap can and will do much better at 19:30 when its out of the way of what e.tv, DStv and even SABC1 is offering.
''Instead of having SABC2's 7de Laan and SABC3's Isidingo both battle it out as local SABC soaps at 18:30 against each other and against the strong other soaps of rivals, there will be just one local and one international soap from the SABC at 18:30 - and then another local SABC soap later in the evening where more viewers can see it and have shown they want to rather watch it,'' another insider says who has close of the pending soap moves.
ALSO READ: Top Billing on SABC3 moving to a new timeslot again from October on the schedule.
ALSO READ: The Bold and the Beautiful on SABC1 moving to 18:30 on weekdays; swapping with SABC1's local magazine shows moving to 18:00.
ALSO READ: In a stunning timeslot change, Days of Our Lives on SABC3 taking over the Oprah timeslot as multiple shows must move.
