'Severe cash-flow contraints': Stained Glass TV forced to shut down production on SABC1's Uzalo over non-payment, 186 cast and crew told filming is paused 'with immediate effect'

by Thinus Ferreira

The biggest TV show on South African television has been forced to shut down production indefinitely due to non-payment by the SABC, with the Durban-based Stained Glass TV that has been forced to end production of Uzalo due to cash-flow problems impacting more than 56 cast members and 133 crew.

Stained Glass TV produces Uzalo for the South African public broadcaster, but also since earlier this year the Skeem Saam timeslot replacement since late-April on SABC1, Amalanga Awafani, which is also set and produced in KwaZulu-Natal. 

It's not yet known whether Stained Glass TV has been forced to also shutter production on Amalanga Awafani. 

"Dear team, we regret to inform you that, due to severe cash-flow constraints, we are compelled to pause production with immediate effect," co-executive producers Gugu Zuma-Ncube, Pepsi Pokane and co-owner Theo Moodley told the Uzalo cast and crew in an internal memo on Monday 4 August.

"Please know that we are actively engaging with the SABC to resolve the matter as swiftly as possible. We understand the impact this has on each of you and remain committed to keeping you informed as the situation develops."

"We are deeply grateful for your unwavering passion, professionalism, and dedication to this special production. Your contribution continues to inspire us, and we are doing everything in our power to get back on track."

Stained Glass Productions was asked for comment, when its cash-flow problems with Uzalo started and what led to it, when it last received payment from the SABC, when it was last supposed to get paid by the broadcaster, as well as how and possible when Stained Glass TV sees the money crisis and production shutdown getting resolved.

Stained Glass TV's answers will be added here once received.

The SABC was also asked in a media query about Uzalo's production shutdown due to cash-flow problems and comment will be added here when received.

Stained Glass TV responded with a statement, passed along from the SABC, saying: "There is no production break on Uzalo, and production continues as scheduled. The SABC remains committed to its partnership with the production company, Stained Glass, and values the continued contribution of the cast and crew."

"As a matter of principle, the SABC does not discuss the details of contractual agreements in the public domain."

Stained Glass TV was asked if there were no production break, why were the Uzalo cast and crew told that production is being paused, but the production company declined to provide an answer.

An insider told and confirmed to TVwithThinus that production crew didn't get paid and were told that production is stopping despite the spin that the SABC might try to put on it to keep the news from being public within the production industry.

Another source said the SABC has been making late payments to Stained Glass TV for Uzalo quite a while, although the production company them took on additional work with Amalanga Awafani.

"People are not worried that Uzalo will shut down in the sense of going off air, but it's a worry about constantly wondering if you're really going to get paid."

Uzalo is the latest in a string of SABC shows that have been forced to literally shut down production over the past while after production companies have not being paid as contractually agreed by the financially struggling South African public broadcaster.

Before Uzalo, shows like 7de Laan, The Estate, Skeem Saam and Muvhango airing across SABC1, SABC2 and SABC3 have shuttered production after the SABC failed to pay on time.

Just this year, Skeem Saam and Muvhango joined Uzalo in halting production in 2025 over non-payment. 

Meanwhile, Kew Productions took the SABC to court over its non-payment and had to sue the broadcaster this year just to get paid what it was owed for the unpaid part of a R10 million contract for seasons 12, 13 and 14 of the travelogue series Voetspore that used to be on SABC2.

The major crisis is waiting to be resolved by Maijang Mpherwane who has just returned since August to the SABC as the broadcaster's new head of video entertainment, with the Uzalo production shutdown that is his first big schedule stability headache.

Nomsa Chabeli, SABC CEO, told parliament recently that the SABC is prioritising paying the parastatal signal distributor Sentech first, which it owes more than R1 billion in outstanding debt. 

It means that some production companies are underpaid less than what they are owed, or nothing. 

"We pay Sentech first before we pay any of our service producers, meaning that producers come after the Sentech payment," Nomsa Chabeli said.

Maijang Mpherwane back at SABC as head of video entertainment division

by Thinus Ferreira

The former SABC executive Maijang Sam Mpherwane has returned to the South African public broadcaster after 8 years to head up its video entertainment division, replacing the fired Merlin Naicker.

Lala Tuku has been the SABC's acting group executive for video entertainment since Merlin Naicker was fired a year ago in July 2024.

Maijang Mpherwane quit the SABC 8 years ago and now heads up the SABC's video entertainment division from August 2025.

Lungile Binza, SABC COO, says "Maijang Mpherwane's extensive expertise in content strategy, public broadcasting, media financing, and regulatory oversight positions him to lead the video entertainment division with innovation, integrity, and strategic vision".

"The SABC board, executive management, and staff are confident that he will continue to drive the growth and success of our video entertainment portfolio."

Previously at the SABC Maijang Mpherwane was a SABC1 commissioning editor, SABC1 assistant rogrammes manager and SABC1 channel boss, as well as general manager for general entertainment channels.

During his SABC tenure SABC1 launched shows like Skeem Saam and Uzalo.

Maijang Mpherwane sat on the board of the National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) from December 2020 to August 2024 and was a member of the Film Incentive Adjudication Panel for 3 years which oversees approval of qualifying local and international productions for the department's rebate programme.

Maijang Mpherwane has a BA degree in dramatic art from the University of the Witwatersrand, a postgraduate diploma in management practice, and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Cape Town's Graduate School of Business.

SABC TV bosses Nomsa Philiso and Maijang Mpherwane jetset to LA for a Bold and the Beautiful champagne celebration while the SABC again fails to pay local producers.

It's reported that the SABC's new TV boss Nomsa Philiso jetted to Los Angeles for a champagne celebration with The Bold and the Beautiful - the very American soap the SABC constantly just says bad things about.

While Nomsa Philiso did photos with The Bold and the Beautiful cast, the struggling and out-of-cash South African public broadcaster once again failed to pay local production companies for content that it now owes hundreds of millions of rand - something that is a responsibility that falls under Nomsa Philiso as the head of television to manage.

The SABC's Maijang Sam Mpherwane, the SABC's general manager for TV channels, reportedly went with Nomsa Philiso to Los Angeles for The Bold and the Beautiful set visit on this international TV junket earlier in April that included a print journalist from South Africa's The Sunday Times and a blogger.

It's not yet clear how much the SABC paid towards the 8-day Los Angeles junket to celebrate the 30th anniversary of The Bold and the Beautiful and the SABC reportedly didn't respond to media enquiries.

The inclusion of the SABC executives is odd since television executives never go on marketing and PR junkets.

The SABC also didn't issue any press statement either before or afterwards about Nomsa Philiso and Sam Mpherwane attending The Bold and the Beautiful celebration, or any of the usual press releases with obligatory drop-on quotes broadcasters issue in conjunction with content suppliers, studios or partnering producers when there's some kind of a milestone celebration.

TV executives at the best of times don't have enough time in their diaries for just their normal day-to-day oversight, management, meetings and decisions - let alone when they're tasked with and heading up an imploding broadcaster like the SABC.

Contrast this behaviour with the new interim SABC board where members worked 18 days flat including weekends and public holidays in April to get to grips and a fuller understanding of the myriad problems besetting the SABC.

While Nomsa Philiso and Sam Mpherwane was in Los Angeles, the SABC, in financial and management crisis, at the end of April again failed to pay all TV producers with some who haven't been paid since February.

Then on Sunday producers and the public they had to read how Nomsa Philiso "flew first class on Emirates" to go toast The Bold and the Beautiful.

The SABC collectively now owes South African TV producers hundreds of millions of rand, with producers saying they will start to withhold delivery of content.

In a "Nero playing the fiddle while Rome is burning", the SABC's Bold and the Beautiful junket is terrible optics for the SABC that is in financial and management meltdown where those working in marketing and publicity once again appears apparently clueless of how its own top executives should and really shouldn't be seen.

It's not clear why Nomsa Philiso and Maijang Mpherwane would go on an overseas marketing and publicity organised junket meant for press and handled by publicists, when the beleaguered SABC needs daily, high-level, hands-on executive intervention.

How valuable and what price is one minute of a broadcasting executive's time (let alone days) of someone like Nomsa Philiso - time that crucially should be going to managing and getting the SABC out of its critical death-spiral, but that is being wasted by doing luxury flights and then photos, long lunches and sun-drenched walks with foreign soap stars.

Press junkets are for media, with journalists like TV and film critics attending, although Nomsa Philiso herself hobnobbed with The Bold and the Beautiful actors like Katherine Kelly Lang and John McCook from the Bell-Phillip Television Production while sipping champagne and doing lunch with sea vistas.

Making Nomsa Philiso and Maijang Mpherwane's champagne celebration of The Bold and the Beautiful even odder and distateful is the fact that the SABC on basically a monthly basis had been making disparaging public remarks about Bold.

In April the SABC's Hlaudi Motsoeneng, touting the SABC's 90% local content strategy, said: "Why would people want The Bold and the Beautiful when they could have local?"

Who can forget the SABC CEO Lulama Mokhobo infamously called The Bold and the Beautiful old and "outdated" and said that the SABC is locked into a so-called "evergreen" contract with Bold that it can't get rid of?

Despite the little love from the SABC, The Bold and the Beautiful remains one of the most watched shows on SABC3.

It's sad that SABC executives like Nomsa Philiso sees doing a Bold and the Beautiful Los Angeles visit oversees as being more important than being hands-on every moment to save the sinking SABC locally in South Africa.

How you see what is really important to people isn't what they say is important, but what you see them give their time and money to.


PS: Over more than a decade and a half I've gone on numerous overseas TV junkets for various channels and shows across the world. I've never once been accompanied by TV executives of any kind. It's utterly unheard of.

Press colleagues who've gone at times to attend a junket for a show around some marketable moment, show, episode, launch or set visit, have had, at times, a publicist or marketing division person going as well - but only in extremely rare cases.

SABC1 doesn't have money for a 2nd season of The X Factor South Africa this year; talent search show might return in 2016.

SABC1 doesn't have money for a second season of The X Factor South Africa this year, and says the reality talent show might be back in 2016 only.

SABC1 says in a statement that the public broadcaster's channel took "a business decision" that the Rapid Blue produced show won't be back for a new season this year. Fiscal reasons prompting SABC1 to "re-assess our broadcasting schedule".

"SABC is leaving The X Factor SA second season out of its broadcast schedule for this year. This follows the channel's re-assessment of its broadcasting plans for the fiscal year," says Maijang Mpherwane, SABC1 channel head in a statement.

"We remain proud of what The X Factor South Africa achieved in its first run," says Maijang Mpherwane.

"To be sure, The X Factor SA is still of value to the channel. However we have had to re-assess our broadcast schedule priorities and take a business decision not to include The X Factor South Africa in our schedule this year".

"SABC1 currently has a number of proudly locally produced reality offerings in the likes of The Sing SA [which ended], and the first of its kind and SA's original search in search of SA's DJ and music producer sensation, 1's & 2's to which they respectively still draw quite significant dependable crowds," says Maijang Mpherwane.

The SABC's chief operating officer (COO) Hlaudi Motsoeneng on Monday reiterated that the SABC should be applauded for its "new" RFP (request for proposals) book asking for various TV productions worth R600 million, although TV production companies told TV with Thinus that they've not heard from the SABC.

"I've sent four proposals - the oldest in January - and I've not had any feedback. Not even a letter of regret. A month ago I again contacted the SABC and they said they can't give feedback before the process isn't completed and verified by the compliance and regulation department."

"I can't understand how the tender process can take so long. Not one of the quotes I had to request for proposals are valid anymore, so all my budgets are worthless."

 An executive at another production company said the SABC is "still stringing us along".

SABC1's new Uzalo telenovela says it's not Generations. 'We just have a specific story to tell in a specific place, very unique to itself.'

If there's hope for South Africa's local television industry - beyond mere advertiser-funded productions, product placement filled TV trash and bake a dozen cookie cutter reality shows - it's to be found in nifty new TV dramas like the SABC's new Uzalo telenovela starting tonight at 20:30 on SABC1.

The telenovela is shot entirely on location in the streets of KwaZulu-Natal's poor yet vibrant F-section of KwaMashu and on elaborate and finely detailed sets constructed within three months on a sound stage in Newlands in Durban.

It is production company Stained Glass Pictures' attempt to prove that local TV drama on South African television can be done successfully outside of Johannesburg.

Viewers will find the story instantly compelling when it kicks off at the time Nelson Mandela was released from prison. On 11 February 1990 at the Queen Anne hospital, two baby boys are born, but accidentally switched.

Now, 24 years later, they find themselves in very different circumstances without them - nor their "families" the Mdletshe's and the Zulu's - aware that they've got the wrong son.

Uzalo at 20:30 as the SABC and SABC1's first local telenovela is taking on Mzansi Magic's (DStv 161) popular Isibaya in the same timeslot and is getting a headstart on e.tv which is launching its first local telenovela Ashes to Ashes on 2 March at 20:00.

The producers are also adamant to stress that Uzalo - more akin to SABC1's popular youth drama Skeem Saam - is not going to be similar to the ratings damaged and reset Generations - The Legacy on the same channel.

"We've never worked from a departure point of 'We want to be different in this way' or we don't want to be associated with this or that. We just have a story to tell."

"It is a specific story, which happens in a specific place which is very unique to itself and we just want to tell that story the best way we can," says the production company headed by president Jacob Zuma's daughter, Gugulethu Zuma ka Ncube and Pepsi Pokane.

According to the producers, KwaMashu will be a strong "invisible" character in the telenovela written by playwright-producer Duma Ndlovu.

"KwaMashu is a character itself. It's a very specific place with its own type of feeling, it's own characters. In the story we really try to weave in KwaMashu as its own character so it's not just a story that could be set anywhere."

"You see it and you just know this really is KwaMashu. KwaMashu is such a hopeful, vibrant place with a character of its own."

"We value the stories that come out of KwaMashu; that come out of Durban; that come out of KwaZulu-Natal," says Maijang Mperwane, SABC1 channel head. "We will continue to strive to tell the different stories that out there in South Africa".

"We're the biggest channel in the country and its because of the audiences that come out of places like KwaMashu that we are who we are today".

"By having the production of a show like this in Durban, we're trying to say let us not sit in Johannesburg and try and tell stories that purport to have meaning out of other places. Lets rather go out there and do our research and make sure that whatever stories we tell are relevant, that they resonate with audiences and that viewers are able to watch and see themselves through the stories we tell," says Maijang Mpherwane.

"Now we're adding Uzalo to the mix. We've done many other stories and we will continue to do many other stories".

"Viewership numbers play a huge role in us determining whether a story is sustainable or not. Unfortunately we can't sit and say 'Whether I like the story or not' it will continue - what the viewers say ultimate is what matter."

"The performances that the cast put in, the work that the directors and the rest of the crew and writers have put in will be judged on Monday onwards. From then on viewers will be the judge whether the story stays or goes," says Maijang Mpherwane.

"We're looking forward as SABC1. We are confident that Uzalo is going to be a great story. We're confident that the response will be good."

"We got to Durban in September last year," says Gugulethu Zuma ka Ncube. "We've gone through the ups and downs of a new TV production, a new city - a city that isn't necessarily geared up yet for productions of this size, and we've made it work".

"We've come here and I'm proud to say that we've made it. We're excited. We're nervous about Monday to see what the rest of South Africa thinks of the work that we've done. It's the viewers ultimate who decide."

"So we're hopeful that viewers will like what they see and recognise the work that we've put in and Uzalo becomes a show that's not only here, but a show that's here to stay," says Gugulethu Zuma ka Ncube.

In an interesting departure and perhaps a first-ever for South African dramatic television (MasterChef SA on M-Net gives away food to charities but that's a reality show), Uzalo which just finished filming episode 24 out of over 300 half hour episodes, is doing - lets call it "corporate social investment" - at the very same time as the TV production.

While some TV shows sometimes leave behind donations or sets, Uzalo is doing community upliftment at the same time as it is battling grueling production deadlines to get episodes ready for delivery and play-out on SABC1.

The telenovela - which recreated on the Newlands sound stage the imagined interiors of some of the actual buildings used for the exterior shots viewers will see - has dramatically improved the real KwaMashu buildings.

On the corner of Zulu Road and Mgobhozi Road in KwaMashu the church not only has a new roof in the place of the old one which leaked but also new doors. There's also a green lawn and a landscaped garden.

Across the road in the garden of the yellow house exterior that's used to show where the Mdeletshe's "live", new plants are also in full bloom.

It's 27 degrees but in the streets little children run and play and stare in amazement. I take my only can of LiquiFruit out of my shoulder bag and give it to two small boys. "Share-share," I say.

They run away. Happy that television decided to come to KwaMashu on such a hot day.


ALSO READ: Review: SABC1's new telenovela, Uzalo, is light on soap, heavy on conflict as a more "mature" Soul City that's less preachy, more dramatic.
ALSO READ: Uzalo set visit reveals some on-set secrets behind the scenes of SABC1's new KwaMashu telenovela.

The X Factor SA judges will be Arno Carstens, Zonke and Oskido when the show starts on SABC1 on 6 September.

The X Factor South Africa's judges will be Arno Carstens, Zonke and Oskido it has been announced.

They will join The X Factor SA's presenter Andile Ncube who was announced at the beginning of last month.

The X Factor South Africa will start on SABC1 on Saturday 6 September at 18:00 on SABC1. 

It remains to be see whether South African viewers will be able to keep up and have as big an appetite for multiple TV talent shows running concurrently on South African television and which of these shows will be able to not only grab viewers' interest but manage to maintain it.

Besides the first season of The X Factor SA on Saturdays on SABC1, there will be Idols X on M-Net and Mzansi Magic (DStv 161) on Sundays at 17:30, and SA's Got Talent's 5th season on e.tv and those judges making their "X'es" also starting in September - a lot of homework for viewers, and TV critics.

The X Factor SA, produced by Rapid Blue, will unspool over the course of 15 weeks on SABC1, starting on 6 September and ending with a live finale in Durban on 13 December.

The winner receives a Sony Music Entertainment contract and R300 000 as a cash prize.

"This is a launch pad for somebody with talent but you also have to have the ambition, the work ethic and everything else," says Maijang Mpherwane, SABC1 channel head.

"SABC1 is delighted that Zonke, Arno Carstens and Oskido have joined The X Factor South Africa judging panel. They have years of experience both here and abroad," says Maijang Mpherwane.

"They are driven and hard-working and bring their extensive know-how and knowledge to the show".

Zonke is a multi-award winning singer, songwriter and producer and a multiple South African Music Awards winner. Her father was Vuyisile Dikana, the drummer of Black Slave and the Flamingo, and her late stepmother, Anneline Malebo, sang for Joy.

Arno Carstens is the lead singer of the Springbok Nude Girls, also won multiple South African Music Awards, and has toured South Africa, Europe, the United States and the United Kingdom.

Oskido is an award-winning producer, performer, radio presenter and record producer who started Kalawa Records, and is a member of Brothers of Peace (B.o.P.)

SABC admonishes: 'Don't call us Yama Repeats'. Public broadcaster says new content is in the works at the SABC.

You're reading it here first.

"Don't call us Yama Repeats".

So says the SABC, tired of viewers chastising the South African public broadcaster for the heaps of repeats, rebroadcasts and old programming shown on SABC1, SABC2 and SABC3.

The SABC's top TV executives told South Africa's TV critics, journalists and advertisers at the SABC's Post 2014 World Cup programming Upfront that it would like to see the South African public stop calling the SABC "Yama Repeats".

"There's big plans for new content going forward, new content that's currently in the works at the SABC," says Leo Manne, the general manager for TV channels at the SABC.

"So across all three TV channels we're completely committed to ensuring that we invest a lot more money in local content. Not only because it works for us from an audience delivery point of view, but it's the right thing to do in encouraging the local TV market and film industry to move forward and grow".

"We have been negotiating and we have successfully negotiated lengthy, long term deals with a lot of our international distributors - particularly for movie content".

"Where we're in a position now - and we haven't been for a very long time - where we're able to commit specific movie titles per slot, per TV channel, at least six months in advance," says Leo Manne.

The SABC is implementing major changes to the schedules of SABC1, SABC2 and SABC3 from after the 2014 World Cup ending 14 July, such as moving the bulk of Afrikaans content to SABC3, changing SABC2 to a "family channel" focused around nation building, and drastically changing SABC1's primetime schedule which will now offer 100 percent local content.

"Coming out of the World Cup we're in a position to offer fresh, five new dramas in weekday primetime on SABC1. We've been labeled 'Yama Repeats' as SABC1 and we had to address it in terms of the contribution we make to the TV production industry, especially around dramas," says Maijang Mpherwane, SABC1 channel head.

"Around the situation around 'Yama Repeats' it is a pity that we are not able to go to a public platform and explain your schedule strategy decisions all the time to people," says Leo Manne.

"With the World Cup schedule starting in mid-June, there was no way that we could start a new series of dramas at the end of May, then interrupt it for a month of World Cup and then start a new schedule after that".

"So we had to, everything considered, go into a repeat mode for that month and a half period, and then come back and introduce these brand new schedules for the SABC," says Leo Manne.

"People see what they want to see and it's a problem that we can't go out there and explain some of these decisions to everybody out there".

"So there was a reason for the repeat period of a month and a half. It wasn't because there was no content or that there was no planning from a SABC Television point of view. We have this tournament that sits smack in the middle of your fiscal  that you need to account for and plan around," says Leo Manne.

"It's also a matter of being criticised because you're the best and people expect the best from you," says Maijang Mpherwane.

"There is no broadcaster out there in the world that doesn't schedule repeats. We have to schedule repeats. In order to balance costs you have to".