You're reading it here first.
Time to vajazzle! I can be first to reveal the news that BBC Entertainment (DStv 120) is continuing the trend of suddenly being the hottest general entertainment TV channel to be found in South Africa having secured the rights to the have-to-watch British reality show The Only Way is Essex which I can reveal will start in June on BBC Entertainment.
BBC Entertainment has suddenly popped as the hottest general entertainment TV channel in South Africa with the delightful Downton Abbey drama on Sundays at 20:30, and having scored the rights to the new Titanic mini-series coming in April. Negotiations are also underway for a 2nd season of the critically praised and popularly loved South African version of Come Dine with Me South Africa that was shown at the end of last year on BBC Entertainment.
Now BBC Entertainment grabbed The Only Way is Essex - a The Hills and Jersey Shore type British reality show following a group of 20somethings and which should land on the schedule sometime in June and which is narrated by the Essex born actress Denise van Outen.
The first season of The Only Way is Essex is a trashi-lovely delight. Get ready for boxing (yes, between the people in the show) a club that burns down, relationship jealousy, two people sleeping together behind the other one's back and enough reali-trash to fill a dump truck.
''The Only Way is Essex has been the stand-out success in the reality TV genre in recent years. Brilliantly produced by Lime Pictures, viewers in the United Kingdom just can't seem to get enough of the tears, tans and drama in the characters' lives and I'm sure that our viewers in South Africa will be just as hooked,'' says Jon Farrar, the vice president for programming for the Europe, Middle East and Africa region (EMEA) for BBC Worldwide Channels.
