Thinus Ferreira
Paramount Africa is switching to burn off episodes of its Black Gold telenovela on BET Africa (DStv 129), further raising fears about the perilous future of BET Africa and Paramount Skydance's collection of TV channels available in Africa.
In a bizarre and unexplained move, Paramount Africa will now burn through double episodes of Black Gold on BET Africa from Monday 22 December.
Black Gold, produced by Black Brain Pictures and set in South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal province, similar to Uzalo and Amalanga Awafani on SABC1, started with little fanfare in mid-August on BET Africa, and is moving to double episodes just four months later.
TV channels move to a scheduling strategy of double bills or more when they want to amortise content or programming to either get rid of it or burn through it as quickly as possible to get to a date whereby the timeslot is required for other programming.
Other reasons range from a TV channel shutting down as part of a termination decision, the relaunching of a TV channel, when it is changing ownership or when a TV channel is altering its channel proposition and the existing content gets dumped because it no longer fits.
Black Brain Pictures doesn't film and complete post-production on more than one episode of Black Gold per day.
It therefore makes no sense for Paramount Africa or any channel provider to burn through more than one new episode per day of a soap or telenovela, since the return on investment - financially, ad revenue, and ratings - simply isn't there.
Channels deliberately stretch out the run of seasons of soaps and telenovelas to capture viewers and encourage habitual viewing for a series for as long as possible.
A second clue is when the double-billing playout of Black Gold starts - 22 December.
Not only is summer viewership of television in South Africa down during the warmer season when the potential total TV audience dips, but it plunges overall even further over the end-of-year Christmas period.
Broadcasters and TV channels don't start new and definitely no premium content during this period when sampling potential is down, let alone waste it by showing multiple episodes in double bills, stacking or omnibusses.
It therefore makes absolutely no sense for Paramount Africa and BET Africa to start wasting double episodes of an original airing - which is a bad idea at any time of the year - especially starting during the end stretch of December.
One of the only reasons it would be happening, is if Paramount Africa bought something - like Black Gold - and is now possibly scrambling to amortise it against the balance sheet and to get it all out and done and shown if BET Africa is to be shuttered.
Paramount Global is reportedly shutting down all of its MTV-related TV channels in the United Kingdom by the end of this year.
Paramount Africa was asked about the future of its TV channels, like MTV, MTV Base and others carried by Canal+'s MultiChoice on DStv, and whether those will also be shut down by the end of this year, but Paramount Africa said it had no comment.
If it is a case of BET Africa ending as a linear TV channel soon, burning off what remains of Black Gold's episode order in sudden double episodes daily, would fit with what TV executives and programmers are forced to do.
It's unknown if Black Gold will see a second season, with Paramount Africa's PR agency describing what remains as "the final stretch of the season" in a press release.
Black Gold is BET Africa's fourth local telenovela-styled series, following after Isono, Redemption and Queendom, which all had mixed success with viewers and in the ratings.
Isono and Queendom - both from Clive Morris Productions ran into financial problems and shuttered that inflicted big reputational damage on Paramount Africa, BET Africa and the production company that failed to pay the casts and crews of both shows.
Black Brain Pictures has since added Tina Jaxa as the character of Nomvelo Hlela, Enhle Mlotshwa as Azania Lwandle, Amogelang Telekelo as Mimi, and Nicole Bessick as Sasha Willems.
