Whooshhh!! That sound you hear is not an invisible domed barrier going up isolating and cutting people off from the rest of the world.
It's an invisible barrier being taken down even further, connecting South African TV viewers as a global viewing community even further, and more closely, to the roll-out and pace of premium American television.
M-Net is rushing the second season of Under the Dome to South African viewers with new episodes of the Stephen King drama which is set to be shown locally extremely close to the American broadcasting date - and I mean extremely close - less than 24 hours by my calculations.
Under the Dome was the most watched TV show in all of 2013 on broadcast television in the United States as far as viewership figures are concerned, and now South African viewers will basically see it (could it be? Exactly the same time) very close here when the story continues.
M-Net has not announced anything officially yet, but a very simple calculation shows that the second season of Under the Dome will very likely be shown in South Africa on M-Net virtually instantaneously with America.
Similar to other big-buzz fantasy and science fiction global TV shows like The Walking Dead on FOX and Game of Thrones on M-Net now rolling out in international markets within a day or days of being shown in the United States, Under the Dome's radical upgrade is the latest TV series added to M-Net's new phenomenal shift to speed up the rolling out of premium TV series.
Under the Dome is now also part of the group of TV shows falling under the dome of the dramatic narrowing of the the broadcasting window gap.
Under the Dome's second season will start on CBS in America on 23 June at 22:00 with a special preview episode entitled "Inside Chester's Mill" and then the rest of the second season's 13 episodes in the weeks after that.
Under the Dome will start on M-Net on Tuesday, 24 June at 20:30 with the same special preview episode and then the 13 episodes following in the weeks after that.
Whether you work on the special preview/recap episode or the start of the "real" reason of Under the Dome, its now clear that Under the Dome's broadcast date and time in South Africa will be less than 24 hours after the United States - about 22 hours later.
Keep in mind that the world turns from East to West. Keep in mind that America falls in a later time zone than South Africa for the same day.
Keep in mind that an episode of an American TV show must be shown on an American TV channel first, before it can be shown elsewhere in the world.
It means that M-Net is basically bringing South Africa, M-Net subscribers and DStv subscribers episodes of Under the Dome at the earliest possible moment - the very earliest and next prime time period in South Africa the day after America had its daily 3 hour prime time block the night before.
