A failure after recent upgrades of BBC Worldwide's content delivery system is to blame for Tuesday night's broadcasting flop when the BBC's global commercial arm was suddenly unable to broadcast the premiere episode of the new The Great South African Bake Off on BBC Lifestyle (DStv 174) as promised.
BBC Worldwide has now rescheduled the debut episode of The Great South African Bake Off for this coming Thursday, 8 October at 20:00 on BBC Lifestyle, with the subsequent episodes which will play out as normal - hopefully - from episode 2, in the original Tuesday primetime slot of 20:00.
On Tuesday night viewers tuned in hoping to see The Great South African Bake Off produced by Rapid Blue with Anne Hirsch and Donovan Goliath as presenters but were suddenly shown an old episode of the British version with Mary Berry - yet with new commercials from Mugg & Bean and Snowflake touting the "too fresh to flop" local version.
On Tuesday night the BBC Lifestyle channel didn't do any on-air announcements, there was no on-air scroll or apology and DStv subscribers didn't know what was happening and why the South African version didn't start as previously announced.
"Due to recent upgrades to the content delivery system, the first episode of The Great South African Bake Off was not processed as it should have been," BBC Worldwide tells TV with Thinus.
"It resulted in the first episode not going to air. We appreciate how disappointing this is for our viewers and sincerely apologise," says BBC Worldwide.
It was a battle to try and get the problem resolved and the final decision to no longer broadcast The Great South African Bake Off as scheduled was made less than half an hour before 20:00 on Tuesday due to unresolved technical issues.
After the show's now notorious "under bake:
Episode 1 of The Great South African Bake Off will now be shown on BBC Lifestyle on Thursday 8 October at 20:00.
Episode 2 of The Great South African Bake Off will continue in the usual Tuesday night 20:00 timeslot next week, 13 October. All other episodes in the series will be broadcast on Tuesdays at 20:00.
After the rescheduled first episode of The Great South African Bake Off is broadcast tomorrow night at 20:00, this first episode will also be repeated on Saturday 10 October at 12:15, Sunday 11 October at 15:00 and on Monday 12 October at 20:55.
