In a major decision-reversal that comes with massive cost and detrimental advertising revenue implications for the SABC, the South African public broadcaster just announced that it will screen the remainder of the African Cup of Nations soccer matches live - a week after the SABC said that it won't be moving its biggest show, Generations to accomodate the continental soccer matches.
Last week the SABC said that it won't be moving South Africa's biggest TV show in viewership - Generations - to a different timeslot to accomodate Afcon matches which the SABC said it would broadcast delayed live. Generations is a cash cow for the broadcaster, raking in millions per month in advertising fees - much more than soccer matches which actually cost the SABC millions in broadcasting rights to secure.
The SABC, with new group CEO Lulama Mokhobo, has decided to reverse tact and will start broadcasting all of the remaining Afcon games live from tomorrow, Saturday 28 January by moving Generations on SABC1 and also using sister channel SABC2 for Afcon broadcasts.
''The decision was taken to respond to the public's plea to see all the games live,'' says Lulama Mokhobo. ''In order to achieve this, consultation was done with several stakeholders including advertisers, to be able to balance our mandate as a public service broadcaster, towards sporting codes of national and continental importance, as well as our business imperatives.''
''For us as a public service broadcaster, it was important to listen to our viewer's needs, and try to accommodate them, within our means,'' says Lulama Mokhobo.
Generations on SABC1 will be moving earlier to 19:00 from Monday 30 January to accomodate Afcon games starting at 20:00 on SABC1. Afcon games will also be shown at 20:00 on SABC2 from Monday 30 January on weekdays which means that SABC2 will be dumping its existing schedule from 20:00 and shows such as the popular Pasella on this coming Tuesday at 17:30.
