by Thinus Ferreira
A "final farewell" is planned for the South African public broadcaster's cancelled Muvhango, which the SABC hasn't renewed after it gave the show a reprieve last year as part of a last-ditch new one-year contract.
The SABC effectively cancelled Muvhango in 2024, after production on the long-running Word of Mouth Pictures-produced series from creator Duma Ndlovu stopped after the existing contract for a much shorter half-season only, finally ran out.
The long-running show, responsible for propping up what remains of SABC2's original programming line-up was cancelled after it shuttered production on 25 June last year after completing a shortened 130-episode season.
The SABC then restarted negotiations with Word of Mouth Pictures and signed a deal for another one-year contract but done cheaper and with creative changes ordered and agreed.
These included story and character changes, including adding Xitsonga-speaking actors.
Muvhango, that turned 28 years old on 7 April with a crew and cast of around 175 people, got an full-season order of 260 episodes for a 26th season.
The show lurched back into production but a hastily-arranged media launch event failed to translate into traction, a promised new starting date got pushed out, a promised new opening sequence and show logo failed to materialise immediately, and Muvhango's SABC2 ratings also failed to improve.
A few months later, Muvhango production once again had to shut down over non-payment to writers, cast and crew - something that had afflicted Muvhango numerous times over the past two decades - and Muvhango background actors are also demanding payment they haven't received yet from Nonkululeko Ndlovu's Turning Heads Casting Agency.
Now the SABC plans to replace Muvhango in the 21:30 weekday timeslot on SABC2 with something called Pimville Queens produced by Bakwena Productions, notorious for payment problems to cast and crew of Paramount Africa's Pound 4 Pound drama series that was on BET (DStv 129).
Instead of keeping ratings steady as SABC2's most-watched show, the relaunched Muvhango slid further in viewership and by the end of 2024 had lost close to 60% of its entire audience which it had started the year with, despite the reset and introduced on-screen changes.
Muvhango, far off from the over 4 million viewers it lured in its heyday to prime time, fell in 2024 from a high of 1.6 million viewers to under 923 000 by the end of last year.
When it returned in August, it only kept bleeding viewers, sliding from 1.32 million in July to just 1.084 million later in August when it returned for a new season, and continuing its viewer erosion to under a million viewers nightly in the months after that.
Lala Tuku, the SABC's head of video entertainment, last year noted that the SABC had reservations and "challenges" around its decision to bring back Muvhango.
She said that the Muvhango contract ran out in what essentially became the show's de facto cancellation.
Money and dwindling ratings for what the SABC pays and gets in return was the big issue that caused "a tussle" in the negotiations around bringing Muvhango back in 2024. The SABC remains technically insolvent.
According to Lala Tuku, expensive shows - including Muvhango - need to perform ratings-wise to bring in advertising revenue or risk being replaced, which is what happened with SABC2's cancelled 7de Laan.
"The reality is that the SABC derives its revenue from advertising. We require audiences to choose to watch our content. The reality is we have brilliant content on our platform and we need our audiences to select it and come in," she said in July last year about Muvhango.
Yeshica Naidoo, series producer, now reportedly said Word of Mouth Pictures are still waiting to hear from the SABC on whether it will be commissioned for a further season.
"We are waiting for confirmation from the SABC about a way forward, so at this moment we just wait and see what is going to happen to the show."
In April, when the SABC was asked about Muvhango finally getting axed and replaced with Pimville Queens, Mmoni Ngubane, SABC spokesperson, said "The SABC can confirm that only one season of Muvhango is currently contracted, and the current contract is set to end on 31 July".
"The SABC cannot comment on the future of the programming at this stage".
Muvhango was the South African public broadcaster's first Tshivenda language drama, which started in April 1997 with one episode per week, after which Muvhango over time expanded to become a 5-day-per-week soap.
Also negatively impacting the soap's possible continuation is tax evasion charges totalling R25 million hanging over Muvhango creator and producer Duma Ndlovu who appeared in court in October 2024.
Besides Muvhango, he also produced Queen Modjadji through his Rhythm World Productions banner for MultiChoice and M-Net's Mzansi Magic (DStv 161) channel on DStv, as well as the now-cancelled Umkhokha, also for Mzansi Magic where the cast and crew also struggled to get paid.
The Umkhokha cast and crew who were not paid at the end of October last year and just told there was "a cash-flow problem". They only got paid after MultiChoice then intervened.