Out of cash for content: This is why the SABC is filled with rebroadcasts and why The Bold and the Beautiful is really gone.

With the South African public broadcaster in extreme trouble, its programming schedules are filled with repeats and rebroadcasts of old shows with the SABC that admitted in parliament on Tuesday that it's not just out of cash to pay salaries but also out of cash to pay for content.

Since the beginning of this month The Bold and the Beautiful was abruptly gone from SABC3 with the contract that was terminated.

The SABC is now showing repeats of old content even during prime time on its channels. A repeat of 2017, Taryn & Sharon, is now rebroadcast on weekdays in prime time on SABC3, as well as SABC2’s former telenovela Keeping Score that is getting a re-airing now on SABC3 also in prime time.

The SABC previously at least tried to keep repeats out of prime time.

Seasons of long-running shows like Survivor and The Amazing Race that used to alternate on SABC3 no longer appear on the March or even April schedules. Meanwhile SABC2 is dusting off library series like 2010's The Joey Rasdien Show, back for yet another repeat. 

Madoda Mxakwe, SABC CEO, warned parliament that a "black-on-air" scenario will happen soon without a government bailout of the beleaguered broadcaster that is on the precipice of financial collapse and will be technically insolvent at the end of this month.

Last month the minister of finance, Tito Mboweni, revealed after his budget speech in parliament that the SABC needs a whopping R6.8 billion in cash as a government bailout to survive.

Madoda Mxakwe, who said that the SABC's cash flow is completely depleted, said the SABC "cannot adhere to all our committed contracts". "We cannot even commission local content production as a result of all of the severe liquidity challenges that we're facing."

"The situation is so bad that several major content providers of key programmes actually refuse to engage with us. Understandably, because we have not been able to pay them in the past couple of months," added Madoda Mxakwe.

"We can't acquire sports rights. Owing to our liquidity challenges we are not able to do it."

"In terms of the significant suppliers that are due and overdue, you are looking at Sentech, we're looking at SuperSport, Samro, as well as other providers of content that we have not been able to pay."


'Black-on-air scenario is a real threat' - SABC CEO
Madoda Mxakwe told parliament that "the SABC cannot guarantee that it will be able to pay its employees’ salaries at the end of March 2019. Should this crisis not be addressed as a matter of urgency, the SABC would be unable to operate and the 'black-on-air' scenario is a real and highly possible threat."

The minister of communications, Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams said later on Tuesday that the National Treasury will give some money to the SABC in order to pay staff salaries at the end of March. The amount was not disclosed.

The SABC told parliament that since October 2018 the broadcaster's audience share has been declining, with its revenue that is expected to continue to decline in the 4th quarter of its financial year.

Yolande van Biljon, the SABC's chief financial officer (CFO), told parliament that "our audience share is declining as a result of a combination of factors and we anticipate it to continue."

She added: "Of our television stations, SABC1 remains the top-performing station but we're also too heavily reliant on it. It is outperforming the prior year revenue but it is the targets for this year which are not being met for all three TV channels."

Yolande van Biljon said: "We have incidents almost once a month where either there's a fire or a roof caves in as a result of the severe storms we've been having in Johannesburg. All of it are symptoms of our inability to maintain our infrastructure."

SABC finally confirms it has dumped The Bold and the Beautiful after 21 years; troubled SABC3's schedule padded with repeats and rebroadcasts from March 2019.

The SABC on Saturday afternoon confirmed what the upcoming SABC3 schedule has showed for a month and said it's cancelling and removing the American weekday soap The Bold and the Beautiful after 21 years from Monday and stocking the troubled channel's schedule with repeats and rebroadcasts of old programming.

After doing a big countrywide publicity blitz with The Bold and the Beautiful star Katherine Kelly Lang in in September 2018 who got prime placement on a flurry of SABC TV talk and magazine shows as well as SABC radio stations, the SABC said Saturday that The Bold and the Beautiful which has been shown on SABC1 and later SABC3 since 1997 has been canned because "of the property's poor return on investment whilst the financial investment to acquire the property kept increasing".

The Bold and the Beautiful, produced by Bell-Phillip Television Productions Inc., is the last remaining American soap opera left on the SABC's channels and has remained a very strong performer on SABC1, as well as with its move to SABC3.

Bold finally getting scrapped from the latest March SABC3 schedule come two years after SABC3 lost Days of Our Lives in September 2017 to rival e.tv.

Exactly as previously reported by TVwithThinus, The Bold and the Beautiful in its 17:30 timeslot is being replaced by a show called Democracy Gauge from Monday 4 March in the timeslot.

SABC3 is also stocking up on rebroadcasts and repeats to pad the channel's schedule, including Taryn and Sharon at 18:00 on weekdays that was first shown in October 2017, a rebroadcast of the SABC2 telenovela Keeping Score on weekdays at 18:30; and yet another repeat of these two shows in the mornings at 09:30 and 10:00.

Neo Momodu, SABC spokesperson, said in the Saturday statement that "in response to the current financial challenges facing the SABC, SABC is implementing a programming strategy which seeks to ensure that it provides compelling and entertaining programming that resonates with audiences".

"The SABC would like to thank all the viewers who have shown unwavering support to the show since its debut. SABC3 would like to assure the public that with the channel's evolution, viewer and stakeholder needs remain important".

The SABC didn't respond to the media's stakeholder enquiries the past week and was asked multiple times when the decision was taken to remove The Bold and the Beautiful from the SABC3 schedule, why SABC is showing rebroadcasts of old content during prime time and whether old content won't lead to lower viewership, as well as what the new direction is that SABC3 is taking.

Despite multiple disastrous timeslot changes in successive do-over relaunches and schedule changes on SABC3, The Bold and the Beautiful has remained a strong performer for the channel over the past three years, despite being moved from SABC1 where it was also a big hit.

Although The Bold and the Beautiful did suffer a knock because of all of the ill-advised moves, it remained one of SABC3's most-watched shows, luring 635 000 viewers in December 2018 as the second most watched TV show on all of SABC3, and 484 067 viewers in January 2019, just below local magazine show Top Billing.

David Gregg, vice president of international publicity for The Bold and the Beautiful at Bell-Phillip Television Productions Inc. in Los Angeles was asked multiple times the past few weeks, including this week for comment about the SABC dumping the show but didn't respond to media enquiries.

Meanwhile concern is also growing around stalwart SABC3 titles like Survivor and The Amazing Race.

The SABC was asked what the situation is regarding these legacy American programming and some of the last remaining rating-grabbers on SABC and whether any of these programmes will continue to be shown on SABC3 after March 2019.

The SABC didn't respond with any written answers.

The Bold and the Beautiful is running on EVA (DStv 141) but with episodes that are two years behind SABC3.

Cash-strapped SABC appears to dumps The Bold and the Beautiful from SABC3's March schedule for Scores of repeats.

The cash-strapped SABC appears to plan dumping the long-running American soap The Bold and the Beautiful from March from the schedule of SABC3 - the South African public broadcaster's most troubled TV channel - filling it with a repeat of the old local Keeping Score telenovela that was on SABC2, while the future of other legacy international shows are also hanging in the balance.

While promising that the American drama series NCIS would start in January on SABC3 as it moved over from SABC2, and SABC3 started running on-air promos - embarrassingly - a new season of the show never materialised.

That followed the pattern of the erratic playout of often-botched, often announced and then delayed seasons of Survivor and The Amazing Race that are all apparently under threat because of the SABC and SABC3 that has seemingly run out of money to buy and hold on to the last remaining international content it had.

Neo Momodu, SABC spokesperson, so far hasn't responded with answers to questions in media enquiries made this week regarding the future of The Bold and the Beautiful on SABC3 after March.

Bold getting scrapped from the latest March SABC3 schedule comes two years after SABC3 lost Days of Our Lives in September 2017 to rival e.tv.

The Bold and the Beautiful, produced by Bell-Phillip Television Productions Inc., is the last remaining American soap opera left on the SABC's channels and has remained a very strong performer on SABC1, as well as with its move to SABC3.

It's not clear whether The Bold and the Beautiful is taking a temporary schedule break due to the SABC's inability to pay for it, or whether Bold is gone from SABC3 permanently. The SABC was asked but hasn't responded with any answers to multiple media enquiries about the future of the show at the SABC.

Despite multiple disastrous timeslot changes in successive do-over relaunches and schedule changes on SABC3, The Bold and the Beautiful has remained a strong performer for the channel over the past three years.

Although it did suffer a knock because of all of the ill-advised moves, it is still one of SABC3's most-watched shows, luring 635 000 viewers in December 2018 as the second most watched TV show on all of SABC3.

The SABC still hyped up local fanfare and gave massive attention and time on both the public broadcaster's radio stations and multiple SABC3 TV shows in September 2018 around the South African visit of The Bold and the Beautiful star Katherine Kelly Lang but now the show is bizarrely gone from the end of this month.

While the SABC would do fawning nationwide campaigns when stars of The Bold and the Beautiful visited South Africa the past two years, the same broadcaster also over the past few years made multiple disparaging public comments about the show in parliament, with previous SABC CEO's infamously calling The Bold and the Beautiful old and "outdated", also saying that the SABC is locked into a so-called "evergreen" contract with Bold that it can't get rid of, and that The Bold and the Beautiful should be taken off of SABC3.

Besides the local weekday talk show Real Talk that has also been cancelled, the SABC appears to weirdly be padding and filling up the March schedule of SABC3 with repeats dusted off from the SABC archives.

Currently, from Monday 4 March, SABC3 plans to repeat SABC2's old local telenovela Keeping Score in the 18:30 timeslot where Bold used to be, preceded by a repeat of another old local comedy series, Taryn & Sharon at 18:00.

Keeping Score will also take over The Bold and the Beautiful's repeat timeslot from Tuesday 5 March at 10:00 on SABC3.

The SABC further plans to replace Real Talk from Monday 4 March at 17:30 with a show titled Democracy Gauge, a probable filler as a politics talk show in the run-up to the national elections that will take place in May.

Meanwhile there's no indication of when NCIS, that the SABC moved from SABC2 to SABC3 with a false start, will actually - if ever - start.

Concern is also growing around stalwart SABC3 titles like Survivor and The Amazing Race.

The SABC was asked what the situation is regarding these legacy American programming and some of the last remaining rating-grabbers on SABC and whether any of these programmes will continue to be shown on SABC3 after March 2019.

The SABC didn't respond with any written answers.

The Bold and the Beautiful is running on EVA (DStv 141) but with episodes that are two years behind SABC3.

RATINGS JANUARY 2017: SABC loses over 18.8 million viewers in one month as AFCON 2017 schedule disruption sees Generations viewers flee to e.tv's Gold Diggers.

The SABC's schedule disruption to broadcast AFCON 2017 was a disaster for the public broadcaster that shockingly lost at least 18.8 million viewers during January when it moved its most watched entertainment shows to smaller channels while soccer matches that replaced it, failed to pull in any significant audiences.

The SABC shed a breath-taking number of viewers in January 2017 who shunned the broadcast of African Cup of Nations 2017 (Afcon) soccer matches from 14 January on SABC1 and didn't follow their popular shows to the SABC's smaller channels.

Viewers are the currency broadcasters crave since ratings determine spot rates for commercials, that in turn impacts advertising revenue and how much broadcasters can ask advertisers to pay.

The SABC's dramatic viewership loss of more than 18.8 million viewers during January as part of its so-called "transversal strategy" in which it moves shows interchangeably between its three channels, caused the loss-making public broadcaster to kick off 2017 with a further dent in its income.

Generations usually on SABC1 and inexplicably moved to SABC3 - the smallest of the SABC's channels - (after it went to SABC2 in previous years of AFCON coverage) shed in excess of 7.3 million viewers.

Generations failed to make even the top 20 list of SABC3's most-watched list during January.

The viewership of Uzalo, usually on SABC1 and moved to SABC2, plunged by a whopping more than 6.6 million viewers.

Skeem Saam on SABC1, moved to SABC2, shed more than 4.8 million viewers.
Shockingly, like Generations, neither Uzalo or Skeem Saam made SABC2's top 20 most watched list in January.

To make things worse, not a single AFCON soccer match that was broadcast on SABC1 cracked that channel's most watched list last month, not even appearing as any of the top 20 most watched programmes for the month.


SABC's loss is Gold Diggers on e.tv's gain

As the SABC pushed millions of viewers away, just as was predicted would happen in December 2016, they flocked to e.tv.

It caused a massive viewership surge for e.tv shows with ex-Generations viewers causing a ratings spike for the rival broadcaster's shows like Gold Diggers that was propelled to record ratings.

Gold Diggers at 20:00 - usually Generations' timeslot on SABC1 - ballooned to a record 3.3 million viewers in January for its most watched episode.

Gold Diggers even surpassed the perennial e.tv number two, the popular soap Rhythm City that had to settle for third place with 3.09 million viewers - the first time ever that that's happened.

The announcement of the 2016 matric results in January 2017 did well for SABC1, pulling 3.73 million viewers.

On SABC2 the Afrikaans soap, 7de Laan - in January broadcast at 19:00 - saw a massive surge due to the AFCON 2017 schedule changes.

The soap's viewership jumped to a whopping 2.7 million viewers for its most watched episode on 20 January, a huge jump from its slumped ratings of 1.65 million viewers a month before.

The SABC just moved 7de Laan on 6 February to the early timeslot of 18:00 where ratings will very likely fall again due to the smaller at-home audience available before prime time.

On SABC2 Muvhango, still the channel's most watched show, crept up in January from 6.2 million to 6.8 million viewers, and the Keeping Score telenovela bounced up from 2.49 million to 3.17 million viewers.

Home, sweet (Top Billing) home
The reversioned 19 January episode of Top Billing on SABC3, still in reruns, repackaged to look at the best luxury mansions of 2016 propelled the show to the most watched programme on SABC3 in the month, grabbing 1.72 million viewers, followed by Isidingo in second place with 1.37 million viewers.

Despite the SABC's 80% local content decree for SABC3, viewers refuse to watch it.

Besides Top Billing, Isidingo, Sharp Shooter and the English TV news bulletin that can be classified as local "series television", all the other entertainment and film programming making the top 20 most watched list on SABC3 during January 2017 was foreign content.

On e.tv during January, besides soap Scandal in top spot (3.94 million viewers), Gold Diggers and Rhythm City claiming the top 3 spots, 12 out of the top 20 most watched pieces of programming were American films,with the American WWE Wrestling Raw and WWE Wrestling Smackdown claiming another two places.

Mzansi Bioskop channel is a rising DStv darling
On pay-TV Mzansi Magic's (DStv 161) Isibaya, embroiled in a real-life cow-stealing scandal, remained at the front of the herd as the most watched show on MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV platform with 1.23 million viewers, followed by Our Perfect Wedding (1.18 million) and Saints and Sinners (888 459).

The top 12 out of the top 30 most watched programming on DStv during January were all Mzansi Magic shows.

Three English Premier League matches managed to pop to the top during January with SuperSport 3 (DStv 203) managing to lure enough viewers to claim three top 30 spots during the month.

It happened on 15 January (426 033 viewers, 13th place), as well as on 21 January with 308 123 viewers (20th place) at 19:30 and 307 164 (23rd place) a bit earlier on the same day at 17:00.

The ascendancy of the Mzansi Bioskop (DStv 164) channel, packaged by M-Net for MultiChoice should be noted. The channel is growing in popularity and rising fast as the second most watched pay-TV channel on DStv in South Africa.

Aimed at the growing lower to mid-working class consumer market clearly in love with their DStv, Mzansi Bioskop is on the up and up.

Local films Luthando (28th place), Luthando 2 (18th place), Luthando 3 (16th place) Mr Lava Lava (17th place), iNumber Number (24th place) and The Price of Njabulo (29th place) all grabbed places on the top 30 list of most watched programming on DStv during January.

SABC2's long-delayed local telenovela, Keeping Score, is finally starting in mid-October with Sonia Mbele as a vengeful matriarch and her son who's a boxer.

SABC2's long-delayed local telenovela Keeping Score is finally set to start next month on the channel.

Rolling out with two episodes per week from 17 October, Keeping Score on SABC2 will unspool a story that will have themes already known to a lot of viewers that's similar to hit shows like Mzansi Magic's The Queen and boxing drama Ring of Lies.

In 2014 the SABC told TV critics that SABC2 plans to start broadcasting its own telenovela from July 2015 to give the channel a foothold in the burgeoning local telenovela sphere.

The deadline however came and went as SABC1 launched the highly successful Uzalo.while SABC3 turned High Rollers from a drama into a telenovela as well.

While e.tv unspooled telenovelas like Gold Diggers, Umlilo and Ashes to Ashes and Mzansi Magic (DStv 161) went to town with an ongoing series of telenovela hits, SABC2 remained the lone hold-out not able to cash in on telenovela buzz and ratings.

Now Keeping Score is set to start from 17 October with two weekly episodes about a wealthy matriarch seeking revenge, as her oldest son is a boxer, taking viewers like Ring of Lies to the inside world behind-the-scenes of the local sport filled with personality clashes, physical and mental challenges and a lot of intrigue.

If it sounds a bit familiar, it might be because viewers have seen some of the themes before.

Sonia Mbele from SABC1's Generations fame plays matriarch Mmamosa who has a grudge to settle against her former lover Justice (Saint Seseli) in a cast filled with Didie Makobane, Nicholas Nkuna and Solomon Sebothoma.

Jacqui Hlongwane, SABC2's programme manager, described Keeping Score to The Sowetan as "an action-packed drama full of rage, lies and love that takes viewers deep into the sullied heart of the sports industry".