by Thinus Ferreira
Over the weekend the SABC's Afrikaans TV news bulletin which was moved from SABC2 to SABC3 six months ago in March was suddenly back on SABC2 without any explanation.
The Afrikaans TV news bulletin which had lost hundreds of thousands of viewers on weekdays when it was moved from SABC2 to SABC3, was back and broadcast on SABC2 at 18:15 on Saturday and Sunday, without any explanation to viewers.
On Saturday evening the SABC's Afrikaans TV news bulletin was replaced by British football on SABC3. On Sunday the SABC decided to replace the Afrikaans TV news bulletin on SABC3 with the BBC documentary natural history series Serengeti.
During the week the Afrikaans TV news remains on SABC3 in its late night timeslot of 20:30 where it barely has any viewers.
It's unclear why the SABC moved the Afrikaans TV news bulletin this past weekend back to SABC2, while the weeknight bulletins remain on SABC3.
This TV news bulletin move six months ago was part of the South African public broadcaster's decision to remove Afrikaans content from SABC2 and shift it to SABC3, since Afrikaans no longer fits with SABC2's latest programming and content strategy.
Mmoni Seapolelo, SABC spokesperson, didn't provide answers in response to media queries about this past weekend's TV news bulletin shift from SABC3 back to SABC2, which were made since last week Monday.
An advertising executive - who decides on behalf of companies who advertise across various media, including on the SABC, and decides on which channels and what budgets to allocate to TV sports - told TVwithThinus the broadcaster's "creates schizophrenia" with the shifting of shows.
"Viewers become confused and are uncertain of where what is shown."
"Advertisers don't have trust and don't want to book spot packages in advance on a TV channel for specific timeslots, if their TVC is then shown within something else and during different content that is suddenly shown instead of the content that was promised."
The SABC which is technically insolvent will once again have a massive financial loss for its 2023/2024 financial year.
Khathu Ramukumba, SABC chairperson, told SABC News on Friday that the broadcaster "is not where we are supposed to be and not where we want to be but we are glad about the progress that we have made".
