by Thinus Ferreira
The Afrikaans weekday soap 7de Laan on SABC2 is returning to a full 5-days a week from October while SABC2's Venda weekday soap Muvhango remains a full-week show, bringing to an end the SABC's failed experiment to cut down on the episodes for both series to try out other programmes in their timeslots.
From the week of Monday 4 October, 7de Laan is back to broadcasting 5 episodes per week on SABC2, while Muvhango continues to run 5 episodes per week as well. SABC2 has not yet issued any statement about 7de Laan's return to full-week episodes.
"7de Laan is delighted at the
SABC's decision to bring back the show to 5 days a week," the production told TVwithThinus on Friday.
"We know that our fans are over extremely appreciative and
excited for this. We owe much of their persistent request to the return.
Viewers can now enjoy an entire week of their favourite show without the long
anxious wait. Best of all, the months ahead are packed with nail-biting,
love-hate and comedic storylines."
Earlier this year the South African public broadcaster angered viewers when it announced a shocking SABC2 schedule shake-up.
The SABC confirmed that from April it would cut back 7de Laan produced by Danie Odendaal Productions, from 5 to just 3 episodes per week.
The SABC also confirmed that it would be cutting back on Muvhango, produced by Word of Mouth Pictures, from August, with the popular primetime soap also seeing its episodes reduced from 5 to just 3 episodes per week.
It led to a petition from viewers signed by over 7 000 concerned viewers and the SABC saying that it won't back down from its plan to "make more room for drama".
The SABC in another statement shortly thereafter, said that "A public petition was circulated, in an attempt to prevent the SABC from diversifying its content on SABC2".
This was however not what the petition from concerned viewers was actually about, who were not against diversifying programming but concerned about losing weekday episodes of their shows.
Merlin Naicker, the SABC's head of TV, said that reducing the episodes of 7de Laan and Muvhango was "part of our longterm plan to invest in quality local content" and that "it is imperative that we come with innovative and exciting content, which will not only draw the viewership, but bring in the revenue required to keep the public service broadcaster financially sustainable".
The SABC considers both long-running series as having somewhat run out of steam creatively and thought that gradual timeslot replacements would yield viewership bumps from new shows.
7de Laan was reduced to 3 episodes to make way for Die Sentrum but the show from Penguin Films on Thursdays and Fridays never got the viewership traction 7de Laan has, with lower ratings in SABC2's 18:00-timeslot.
Before the debut of Die Sentrum the SABC in a statement said that it was "confident that this new programme will be a drawcard and like 7de Laan, will keep the channel's loyal viewers entertained for the remainder of the week".
In July 7de Laan lured around 1.2 million viewers to SABC2, while Die Sentrum hovered around 720 000 per episode. This is far below 7de Laan and represents a net loss of thousands of viewers in the timeslot and also forced SABC2 to lower ad rates during the slot, meaning less revenue for the broadcaster.
Meanwhile, the promised second season of the Xitsonga telenovela Giyani, produced by Tshedza Pictures, never materialised in Muvhango's 21:00-timeslot from August with no explanation to viewers or an update to the TV industry.
Neither the SABC nor SABC2 channel head Gerhard Pretorius made any further public statements before August that Giyani isn't going to start, or since, about why Giyani didn't start last month on Thursday and Friday nights as was initially promised.
According to insiders the Covid-19 pandemic severely delayed Giyani production and SABC2 couldn't get the show on air in time.
Development and production on Giyani were hugely impacted by Covid-19 and the production couldn't deliver episodes for playout from August as planned, although production
is now in full swing. No new SABC2 broadcast date is available for the second season that is now supposed to start sometime in November.
