by Thinus Ferreira
Pierre Breytenbach, a co-presenter on kykNET's morning show Die Groot Ontbyt, will be the presenter of the South African and Afrikaans version of the game show The 1% Club called Die 1% Klub.
Entries for the South African version of the game show, produced by Rapid Blue, originally opened in late April and initially closed at the end of May.
Now Rapid Blue opened entries again, with a final closing date extended to 31 October 2026. No reason has been given for the new application round.
Rapid Blue is filming Die 1% Klub in Johannesburg and kykNET originally said that it would start airing towards the end of 2026.
With the delay and the new round of applications, it is unclear whether the starting broadcasting date will be pushed to 2027.
Die 1% Klub requires 100 contestants from across South Africa to sit inside the studio, per episode, with 100 new contestants per episode - meaning that 13 episodes would require a contestant pool of 1 300 people, as well as backups.
Pierre Breytenbach is a South African actor and comedian known for TV commercials and roles in local soaps ranging from Egoli and 7de Laan to Villa Rosa, Generations and Binnelanders.
He was also a field presenter for SABC2's 50/50 wildlife programme for a number of years, and appeared in Die Casper Rasper Show, Getroud met Rugby, Wild at Heart, as well as Proesstraat.
As the co-host of the 4th kykNET Silwerskerm Awards for Film and Television, which closed out the 14th Silwerskermfees film festival in Cape Town, Pierre Breytenbach announced on stage that he will be the presenter of Die 1% Klub when it starts on kykNET (DStv 144).
"I'm going to be the host of Die 1% Klub on kykNET," Pierre Breytenbach said on stage.
The 1% Club was created by the British TV producers Andy Auerbach
and Dean Nabarro through their Magnum Media production company.
The 1% Club launched on ITV in 2022 with BBC Studios, which is distributing the format globally.
The contestants - 100 initially - get multiple answers for each question, which deals with logic and puzzles, and between a minute and 30 seconds to choose an answer. Wrong answers and contestants are eliminated until a final three are left.
Since 100 contestants start an episode, the final question, if answered correctly, means that 1% of the people who started, got it correct and knew the right answer.
The British version has the English comedian Lee
Mack as presenter; Joel McHale is the American presenter, and Jim Jefferies is the Australian presenter of The 1% Club.
The 1% Club is already in 15 territories worldwide, with South Africa's Afrikaans version counting as the 16th version of the show format.
When kykNET announced Die 1% Klub, Waldimar Pelser, M-Net director of premium channels, said that the channel "simply fell in love with this format
immediately when BBC Studios showed it to us last year".
"The kykNET audience loves studio game shows, and
it was no small task to find a format that could provide the
same dose of adrenaline as Who
Wants to Be a Millionaire?. We believe Die
1% Klub – which tests logic and common
sense in a humorous way, instead of general knowledge – is the
right show to do that, and we hope our viewers will be just as
crazy about this fresh format as we are."
Grant Flynn, Rapid Blue's chief creative officer,
said that The 1%
Club celebrates "sharp thinking in a playful, inclusive
manner that resonates with viewers across generations".
"We are
excited to produce this show for kykNET and to bring this
globally successful programme to South African screens, and we
cannot wait to see how our local contestants will tackle the
challenges".
