SABC1 botched the playout of its latest local drama series, Diamond City, on Sunday night, mistakenly showing the final 13th episode instead of the penultimate episode, and is apologising to viewers for the error due to a mislabeling mistake.
Viewers were confused and angry after the South African public broadcaster spoilt the local drama series produced by Quizzical Pictures on Sunday by suddenly showing and giving away the ending with a gap that made no sense.
"It's grossly disappointing to realise SABC1 skipped a whole entire episode - 1 hour of critical storytelling and hard work - and aired the final episode instead," said actress Nambitha Ben-Mazwi. "I apologise on behalf of them to our loyal audience. It's more disheartening for us, believe me."
Production company Quizzical Pictures called the SABC's mistake "really disappointing".
The SABC told TVwithThinus it won't show the "missing" episode of Diamond City because SABC1 doesn't want to make the schedule disruption worse.
It took the SABC 5 days to respond to a media enquiry about what happened with the broadcast mistake of Diamond City.
"SABC1 offers an unreserved apology to its viewers for the inconvenience caused due to the non-screening of episode 12 of the local drama series Diamond City on Sunday 6 January at 20:00," SABC1 said on Friday in response to a media enquiry.
"The unfortunate situation occured as a result of a mislabeling error which saw episode 13 - which is the final episode for the current season - airing instead."
"The channel's scheduling department has in the meantime taken a decision not to screen the skipped episode (episode 12) to avoid a further negative impact on the schedule."
SABC1 has adjusted its schedule for the next 3 weeks with Shakespeare in Mzansi: Death of a Queen, Shakespeare in Mzansi: Izingane Zobaba and Shakespeare in Mzansi: Ugugu No Andile that will be shown on 13, 20 and 27 January on Sunday nights.
