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Come Dine With Me South Africa, the first original TV production commissioned by BBC Entertainment (DStv 120) for South Africa which just finished its first season and is now being repeated on BBC Lifestyle, has been a viewership and critical success, averaging 100 000 viewers per episode.
The viewership for Come Dine with Me South Africa has made BBC Entertainment the number one international channel for DStv viewers during the 21:00 to 22:00 timeslot over the course of the enitre first season's 10 episodes that boasted great production values and entertaining contestants.
The first episode of the show, a local version of ITV Studios' hit format and produced by South Africa's Rapid Blue, increased BBC Entertainment's timeslot share by a whopping 172% compared to the average viewership in the timeslot in the preceding 12 weeks.
''I am thrilled that Come Dine With Me South Africa has been a huge hit with enormous positive buzz around it,'' says Jon Farrar, the vice president for the EMEA region for BBC Worldwide Channels and executive producer of Come Dine with Me South Africa. ''I've learned that South Africans really know how to hold the most entertaining dinner parties in the world, and I'm so glad we had our cameras there when they did. The result has been a series that has exceeded even our own highest expectations.''
