by Thinus Ferreira
With Bollywood in lockdown multiple shows seen in South Africa across several Indian TV channels have been affected by the spreading global Covid-19 novel coronavirus pandemic with series on channels ranging from Star Life, Zee World and Glow TV that have run out of new episodes and been replaced by repeats.
On Star Life (DStv 167 / StarSat 550 / Openview 110) all new shows have the schedule skids since the studios in India and South Africa and their filming, dubbing process and distribution operations have all shuttered as part of national lockdown periods in both countries.
Star Life switched to a binge-block rebroadcast schedule from 1 April 2020 of already-aired series for the next to months until at least the end of May 2020 with A Perfect Lie, Family Affairs, Kulfi, Made for Each Other and The Inseparables that all abruptly stopped airing new episodes.
Once new episodes become available, the last few aired episodes of these shows will repeat again before new episodes are possibly shown. Star Life continues to show daily Bollywood films at 15:00
The Star Life prime time schedule has now changed to two episodes daily of The Crossroads at 18:00 until 19:00, followed by 5 consecutive episodes daily of Forever Yours until 21:30, and then 3 episodes daily of Chasing My Heart between 21:30 and 23:00.
With production and international content distribution from within India shut down, on Zee World (DStv 166) the just-started Jodha & Akbar has been removed from the schedule indefinitely. The telenovela Ring of Fire has also been removed and replaced by a rebroadcast of Gangaa at 20:00 with Jodha & Akbar replaced by a rebroadcast of Twist of Fate at 21:00.
A repeat of Mehek has replaced Lies of the Heart on weekdays at 17:00, while Lies of the Heart at 22:00 is a rebroadcast of the series.
New episodes are still available for the recently started Our Perfect Place broadcast daily at 18:00 in its usual timeslot and the second season of Deception which continue daily in the 19:00 timeslot.
The schedule of Glow TV (StarSat 570 / Openview 140) has also been dramatically impacted by the global Covid-19 national lockdowns and the inability to get content out of India.
Glow TV has switched to a programming strategy for now of repeats of the past two week's episodes of its Indian series True Love, This is Love and Young Love.
