e.tv giveth and e.tv taketh away: The red letter South African broadcaster is finally granting one of South African viewers' wishes, but like any fairy tale there's also a bit of a price to pay - a Scandal! omnibus is finally being added to the e.tv schedule on weekends but e.tv is dropping the omnibus of its other soap, Rhythm City to make space for it.
First the good: After pleading for literally years, South African viewers will now get a Scandal! omnibus on e.tv from this Satyrday, 6 September at 09:30, repeating all of this week's episodes, and doing so henceforth every Saturday.
The bad news? That used to be the omnibus timeslot for the weekend repeats of Rhythm City, which means that the Rhythm City omnibus is being dumped from e.tv.
It's not clear how this decision is going to be going down with viewers. Yes, the Scandal! weekend omnibus is hugely welcome, hugely appreciated, and will be hugely liked and is a major step forward for e.tv. It's just sad that it has to be done at the cost of the Rhythm City omnibus.
A clever e.tv would find a way to accomodate both a Rhythm City omnibus over weekends, as well as a Scandal! omnibus over weekends - perhaps showing the one soap's episodes on a Saturday and the other soap's omnibus episodes on a Sunday.
What is now happening, is that the Rhythm City omnibus will be moving to the eKasi+ (OVHD 105) channel on OpenView HD - although viewers without the OpenView HD satellite service won't be able to see it anymore.
"We've received a huge response from viewers requesting a Scandal! omnibus and have decided to introduce this to our weekend morning line-up," e.tv tells TV with Thinus.
I asked why it hasn't been possible for e.tv to have a separate omnibus of both Rhythm City episodes and Scandal! episodes on e.tv sometime during Saturdays and Sundays.
"Rhythm City fans can still enjoy the premiere episodes in the 18:30 weekday slot as well as the repeats at 09:00 on weekdays," says e.tv.
"The move is simply a lack of availability of suitable slots for an omnibus on e.tv. Viewers can catch the Rhythm City omnibus at 09:00 every Sunday from 7 September on our eKasi+ channel through OVHD. The audience is consuming content across various platforms at different time and we have to constantly monitor audience needs and flow," the channel tells me.
