by Thinus Ferreira
The South African public broadcaster's SABC3 has undergone yet another image rebranding exercise with the TV channel that will now be known as simply "S3" from April, with a lime green-on-blue logo together with the new slogan "Open Up".
S3 as the SABC's only commercial TV channel is now targeting "progressive millennial" viewers who have abandoned traditional linear television and switched to streaming services like Netflix, with the SABC that is trying to lure some of that audience to linear TV through compelling content and conversations.
SABC3's switch to S3 is part of a content offering rebuilding and market repositioning for the financially struggling channel that has seen its fortunes, allure as a viewership destination, and its ratings wane over the past decade.
As its schedule got dismantled and once popular international and signature local shows - together with anchor programming like Isidingo - got cancelled, viewers left.
They were followed by advertisers and scorched producers, while SABC3 lost its defined channel identity and became a dumping ground for last-minute acquired sports disrupting the schedule and other shows that didn't fit on SABC1 or SABC2.
Under new channel head, Pat van Heerden, SABC3 is rebuilding and re-emerging as S3, slowly adding edgy and provocative content, and is looking to re-engage viewers - especially a younger-skewing audience with more risque programming stimulating conversation, debate and thought.
SABC3 is launching a new locally-produced telenovela by Clive Morris Productions from Monday 5 April at 19:00, The Estate to anchor its new prime-time line-up.
It's adding acclaimed foreign telenovelas like Brazil's refugee drama, Orphans of a Nation from Mondays to Wednesdays at 18:30, and Turkey's therapy clinic-set The Red Room on Thursdays and Fridays serving as the lead-in programming.
Unpacked with Relebogile Mabotja is a new local talk show for the S3 schedule that will kick off in April, promising to delve deep into topics and conversations that are deliberately chosen because they make people "uncomfortable".
The S3 talk show will tackle often-taboo subjects with sensitivity that South Africans are either too scared or too awkward about to address or simply don't know how to talk about publicly.
In other programming changes, S3 is adding the American ITV crime drama series The Bay on weekdays at 19:30 from 6 April, while the Cardova Productions produced afternoon talk show Afternoon Express is cut down from 5 to just two episodes per week on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and moving from 17:00 to 17:30.
S3 will now have two half-hour news bulletins - one at 18:30 and another at 20:00 and will have season 36 of the American Survivor entitled Ghost Island, along with the critically-acclaimed drama series The Night Manager on Tuesdays at 21:00 and Mrs America on Thursdays.
The HBO documentary Being Serena about Serena Williams is broadcast on Thursday night at 21:00 on 7 April with the Hulu comedy Woke screened on Fridays at 21:00.
SABC3 unveiled its new S3 rebranding on Wednesday night at a media event held in Johannesburg that started late and where many guests didn't wear masks or adhered to social distancing Covid-19 protocols, with a live stream for national media watching from home that was badly produced and marred by multiple mistakes and bad production values.
Merlin Naicker, the SABC's head of TV, said that "we are creating a new SABC3 and we are taking note of industry trends and taking the schedules of SABC1 and SABC2 into consideration - the idea is to make sure that our audience will always find something that they will enjoy or that they can relate to on the SABC's channels".
Pat van Heerden said that "we're in a very congested television landscape and most of the channels that are coming in are international and when we look at that, people are reduced to an algorythm. We have the opportunity as the SABC to speak to the citizens of our country".
"We have the privilege of creating a channel which our citizens can be connected to - and that's the privilege we have: connection. When you look at international channels like Netflix they don't have that connection - that ability to speak to our audiences, to get reflections back."
A progressive millenial channel
"We're creating a channel in which our citizens belong, we have a conversation with them - and then we thought what else is out there in terms of SABC1 and SABC2? What can S3 offer?"
"We're looking at becoming a progressive millennial channel in which we're speaking to the generation that has to face the future, that has to work in this economy, and we thought how can we become part of the conversation in terms of becoming future-fit - and that's what we're doing."
"SABC3 is opening up a dialogue, a dialogue about being a citizen, being conscious, being environmentally friendly, looking at the crises facing the planet; and then looking at what global entertainment can we offer citizens basically for free that you have to pay on subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) services for," Pat van Heerden said.
"This is your public broadcaster giving you fantastic programming and curating a dialogue with our audiences."
"What we're done is to look out into the rest of globe and take programming from Australia and New Zealand, Canada, Brazil, Turkey - and we've really selected programmes that we think will speak to someof the issues that we have in our country and some of the things that we like to celebrate."
"Locally, we're looking at some dramas and building prime time with a new daily drama called The Estate."
Opening up
Pat van Heerden said the new slogan of "Open Up" is "about opening up about discussing our differences, finding commonality, opening up to seeing the rest of the world, opening up to their stories and seeing ourselves as global citizens".
About the switch to a lime green S3 logo on blue, Pat van Heerden said S3 is "not a natural history channel but we will be conscious about the environment".
"We want to do entertaining programming around environmental issues. You have thrillers being made in Australia, you have a thriller from Brazil set in an eco-warrior landscape, so it's about the content but entertaining content."
