Tyler Perry will be producing a brand-new scripted drama, The Haves and the Have Nots for Oprah Winfrey's TV channel OWN; the channel's own black version of Downton Abbey following a rich family and their impoverished maid, Hanna.
Neither MultiChoice's DStv nor On Digital Media's TopTV have added Oprah Winfrey's OWN channel to their pay-TV platforms in South Africa so far, and no South African broadcasters have bothered to secure hit shows on the OWN channel.
OWN has shows such as Oprah Winfrey's high-buzz new talk show Oprah's Next Chapter (which will soon see Oprah Winfrey interviewing Whitney Houston's mother Cissy Houston in a new episode one year after the singer's death) and programmes such as the eye-popping Iyanla Fix My Life, the selfhelp Lifeclass and the movers and shakers profile show Oprah's Master Class.
Whether South Africans TV viewers will get to see The Haves and the Have Nots remains to be seen, but OWN's first scripted series will start in America on the channel in May.
The new scripted drama which will be written, directed and produced by Tyler Perry for OWN, will follow the lives of an affluent family called the Cryers, and the poor housekeeper who works for them, similar to Downton Abbey on BBC Entertainment. Many obstacles, secrets and challenges exist within both sides of the household equation.
