by Thinus Ferreira
South Africa's national lockdown period has forced M-Net to use Lockdown and other shows to plug sudden holes on its Mzansi Magic (DStv 161) schedule.
The spreading global Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic also affecting South Africa's struggling TV industry, caused a vast number of locally-produced TV series on public television and pay-TV to abruptly shutter in late-March.
M-Net is now replacing schedule gaps left by incomplete shows on its Mzansi Magic channel, packaged for MultiChoice's DStv channel, with various library series.
After broadcasting new promos throughout March for the second season of Housekeepers, produced by Oche Moving Pictures with Portia Gumede as showrunner and starring Thando Thabethe, Mzansi Magic has pulled the season that was scheduled to debut on Monday 6 April at 20:00.
In its place because of the national lockdown, Mzansi Magic is now showing a borrowed "lockdown": the 5th season the local prison series Lockdown, produced by Black Brain Productions, that was moved to MultiChoice's video streaming service Showmax last year and that made its debut in January 2020 on the streamer.
Since filming hasn't yet finished on all of the episodes of Housekeepers with the production that only started filming at the beginning of March, M-Net decided to remove the series for the time being and to postpone its launch.
It has now been replaced with the prison-wall set series starring Dawn Thandeka King, Connie Chuime, Zola Nombona, Linda Sokhulu and Lorcia Cooper.
The second season of Housekeepers will now start at a date that is still to be determined later in 2020 with insiders who told TVwithThinus that the production was affected and shuttered due to the Covid-19 lockdown.
In another stopgap measure Mzansi Magic also replaced the second season of the KwaMashu-set series eHostela.
The Stained Glass TV produced series was also forced to shutter causing unplanned production delays, with Mzansi Magic that replaced it this past Sunday in the 20:00 timeslot with the locally-produced drama series Trackers that made its debut in October 2019 on the M-Net (DStv 101) channel.
Since 17 March MultiChoice, and individually the various M-Net-packaged channel sets, have all been asked numerous times which TV series specifically have been impacted or shut down because of the virus issue and the national lockdown but so far there's been no response.
