The Royalty Soapie Awards' PR company released a prepared statement about the Royalty Soapie Awards' postponement - without giving a new date - at exactly midnight on Saturday night before the Sunday tabloids splashed about the news.
The Royalty Soapie Awards apparently couldn't sign a South African broadcaster to broadcast the event of 2 November on time, as it is trying to hammer out a deal with the SABC's SABC1 channel.
Questions have been swirling around the Royalty Soapie Awards, organised by Generations' actress Winnie Modise since earlier this year when it splashily announced a September announcement of nominees which didn't materialise.
Meanwhile many in the local TV industry are clueless about the judges since the awards show refuses to release any names; people are uncertain about how the awards works; and Lala Tuku, Winnie Modise's partner to start the awards ceremony, is no longer involved and backed out.
There's been other delays as well and big concerns from the South African TV industry. It saw e.tv pull its local soaps such as Rhythm City and Scandal! and pay-TV broadcaster M-Net also snubbed it by keeping Inkaba and Zabalaza out of categories.
According to the TV industry this voids the credibility of the Royalty Soapie Awards if it doesn't have 100% representation of what is purports to give industry awards to. Business, including the South African TV industry and soap productions, need predictability and abhors uncertainty.
In the statement, the Royalty Soapie Awards, now claiming the beginning of 2014 is better because the calendar is less crowded and that it is jettisoning its 2 November date in Durban for a new, unannounced date in the 2014, says "the inaugural awards ceremony focusing on television soap opera will now take place in the first quarter of 2014".
"The first quarter of the year is an ideal time and fairly uncluttered from an entertainment point of view and is a fantastic time to visit Durban as it falls outside of the peak holiday season," says Sindile Xulu, Royalty Soapie Awards project director.
The statement doesn't explain why the organisers - wanting to do a professional industry event - didn't know of, were not aware of, or didn't have or make use of professionals to calendarise and inform the organisers of this back in June when the Royalty Soapie Awards and the dates were announced.
Also not clear is why soap actors and TV soap crew would eevn care about whether they have to show in or out of peak season at Durban's International Convention Centre - doing an awards show appearance is part of publicity work for productions and not for stars to holiday.
The Royalty Soapie Awards now plan to announce the finalists in the acting categories on 23 October. Voting for the non-inclusive list of soaps for the "Most Popular Soapie" award has been announced as now starting on 2 November although people wanting to vote for certain soaps won't be able to do so.
