SABC3 channel boss Pat van Heerden to exit after 5 years at the end of April 2023.

by Thinus Ferreira

SABC3 channel head Pat van Heerden will exit the South African public broadcaster at the end of the month TVwithThinus can reveal.

The experienced TV executive accepted the gargantuan task to try and rightsize the seemingly terminal SABC3 with major programming, scheduling and on-air rebranding interventions as part of a turnaround strategy to try and lift ratings over the past five years since her appointment at the start of 2020.

With master degrees from New York University, this was Pat van Heerden's second stint a the SABC where she previously also served as head of entertainment and head of documentaries and factual entertainment for SABC1, and also helping out Media24's Afrikaans lifestyle channel VIA on MultiChoice's DStv, as head of content and scheduling.

There are now growing fears that the progress made on turning around SABC3 could all be undone as the highly respected channel boss exits the channel at the end of the month without any real permanent successor appointed to replace her. 

The SABC plans to once again run SABC3 with an acting channel head for the time being - one of the major problems that contributed to the channel's ratings failure over the past decade and a half that Pat van Heerden rebranded as "S3" in April 2021 - now courting and luring back progressive millennial viewers who have grown up in a digital, streaming world to traditional TV broadcasting.

Pat van Heerden succeeded in making massive inroads to stem SABC3's ratings slide especially on weekends with natural history programming that's successful in luring back viewers. She also plugged the early prime time schedule chasm left after the cancellation of Isidingo with The Estate.

Now insiders are saying that the exit of Pat van Heerden reeks of "ageism" and that the move looks as if she's being pushed out for apparently being too old, although she's a highly experienced TV content executive who has managed to prevent SABC3 from total collapse after years of mismanagement.  

Mmoni Seapolelo, SABC spokesperson, in response to a media query, confirmed to TVwithThinus that SABC3 will once again be without a channel head from the end of the month and that Pat van Heerden is exiting.

"The SABC can confirm that Pat van Heerden will leave the corporation at the end of the month. Like any other organisation, the SABC has measures in place including succession plans to address matters such as this one".

The SABC says "It must be noted that the success of S3 is as a result of a great teamwork and the people who were instrumental in drafting the roadmap of S3's strategy will continue to ensure that the channel continues to grow."

"The SABC would like to wish Pat well and her contribution as a very passionate and experienced broadcaster has added value to the SABC and contributed towards the reduction of audience losses on the channel through her great editorial strength."

The SABC declined to comment on questions as to why Pat van Heerden's contract wasn't extended if she is regarded as successful and who will be taking over as acting channel head.

SABC3 fills its 2-month prime time The Estate telenovela gap with a repackaged rebroadcast titled The Estate Rewind.

by Thinus Ferreira

SABC3 is no longer replacing the 2-month gap between the second season and the start of the third season of its local telenovela The Estate with a rebroadcast of SABC1's Family Secrets from today, but will now be showing repackaged episodes of the first two seasons of The Estate, retitled as The Estate Rewind, from Monday evening.

The third season of The Estate was supposed to continue seamlessly on S3 after the end of the second season which was this past Friday but issues around the recommissioning process meant there will now be a gap of just over two months before viewers will see new episodes of the ratings-challenged show.

The debut of the third season of The Estate which S3 originally announced as 1 July has now also been brought slightly forward with the first new episode of the Clive Morris Productions show that will now start on 20 June in the tough timeslot of 19:00.

SABC3 initially planned to fill The Estate's timeslot with a rebroadcast of the SABC1 series Family Secrets with Khanyi Mbau, Katlego Danke, Vusi Kunene and Robert Whitehead from 18 April.

That has now changed and Family Secrets will now start on S3 on 16 May.  

For a month from 18 April, SABC3 will now show The Estate Rewind - repackaged episodes from the first two seasons, showing the major plot points of the story so far.

"The Estate Rewind episodes will explore the subject of land reform, identity, and historical disempowerment. It will give the viewers a teaser of what to expect in The Estate season 3, which is set to return on 20 June 2022," S3 says.

Pat van Heerden, SABC3 channel head says "The Estate Rewind is our time to get up close to the world of our story. It is a time for us to contemplate the lines between reality and fiction – and how sometimes fictional daily drama can give us acute truths about the real world".

The Estate, revolving around the dual rich/poor communities of an exclusive housing development has had a troubled production and viewership history since its debut a year ago in April 2021 as an Isidingo prime time replacement.

The Estate has been struggling severely to hook eyeballs and with anaemic ratings slipping lower, the SABC decided to rebroadcast the first season during prime time on sister channel SABC1 in 2021 to try and lure more viewers to the second season on S3.

The Estate made its debut on SABC3 in April 2021 with disappointing ratings that kept worsening, mostly due to damage suffered by the success of e.tv's House of Zwide in the same death-zone 19:00-timeslot.

The Estate only pulled 352 741 viewers at most during prime time on S3 during March 2022.

Last year the cast and crew of The Estate went unpaid for months with several broken promises of payment and with the SABC at the time saying it had "great concern" about the issue.

Clive Morris Productions told cast and crew in late-2021 that their payments can't be made because of "delayed payment from the SABC", but the SABC said that it had paid the company.

ALSO READ: SABC3's troubled The Estate going off-air for over 2 months.

ALSO READ: SABC1 tries to save S3's The Estate with a bizarre primetime rerun from 6 September at 7pm with the local telenovela that will now be shown back-to-back on two SABC channels nightly.

ALSO READ: SABC removes the SABC1 rebroadcast of SABC3's struggling The Estate telenovela that will vanish a month before the end of its first season. 

ALSO READ: SABC1 returns the remaining first season episodes of SABC3's struggling telenovela The Estate to its schedule in March with a double bill conclusion on 8 April.

SABC3 rebrands as S3 with a lime green-on-blue logo and new Open Up slogan as the channel pivots towards 'progressive millennial viewers'.

by Thinus Ferreira

The South African public broadcaster's SABC3 has undergone yet another image rebranding exercise with the TV channel that will now be known as simply "S3" from April, with a lime green-on-blue logo together with the new slogan "Open Up".

S3 as the SABC's only commercial TV channel is now targeting "progressive millennial" viewers who have abandoned traditional linear television and switched to streaming services like Netflix, with the SABC that is trying to lure some of that audience to linear TV through compelling content and conversations.

SABC3's switch to S3 is part of a content offering rebuilding and market repositioning for the financially struggling channel that has seen its fortunes, allure as a viewership destination, and its ratings wane over the past decade.

As its schedule got dismantled and once popular international and signature local shows - together with anchor programming like Isidingo - got cancelled, viewers left. 

They were followed by advertisers and scorched producers, while SABC3 lost its defined channel identity and became a dumping ground for last-minute acquired sports disrupting the schedule and other shows that didn't fit on SABC1 or SABC2.

Under new channel head, Pat van Heerden, SABC3 is rebuilding and re-emerging as S3, slowly adding edgy and provocative content, and is looking to re-engage viewers - especially a younger-skewing audience with more risque programming stimulating conversation, debate and thought.

SABC3 is launching a new locally-produced telenovela by Clive Morris Productions from Monday 5 April at 19:00, The Estate to anchor its new prime-time line-up.

It's adding acclaimed foreign telenovelas like Brazil's refugee drama, Orphans of a Nation from Mondays to Wednesdays at 18:30, and Turkey's therapy clinic-set The Red Room on Thursdays and Fridays serving as the lead-in programming.

Unpacked with Relebogile Mabotja is a new local talk show for the S3 schedule that will kick off in April, promising to delve deep into topics and conversations that are deliberately chosen because they make people "uncomfortable". 

The S3 talk show will tackle often-taboo subjects with sensitivity that South Africans are either too scared or too awkward about to address or simply don't know how to talk about publicly.

In other programming changes, S3 is adding the American ITV crime drama series The Bay on weekdays at 19:30 from 6 April, while the Cardova Productions produced afternoon talk show Afternoon Express is cut down from 5 to just two episodes per week on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and moving from 17:00 to 17:30.

S3 will now have two half-hour news bulletins - one at 18:30 and another at 20:00 and will have season 36 of the American Survivor entitled Ghost Island, along with the critically-acclaimed drama series The Night Manager on Tuesdays at 21:00 and Mrs America on Thursdays.

The HBO documentary Being Serena about Serena Williams is broadcast on Thursday night at 21:00 on 7 April with the Hulu comedy Woke screened on Fridays at 21:00.

SABC3 unveiled its new S3 rebranding on Wednesday night at a media event held in Johannesburg that started late and where many guests didn't wear masks or adhered to social distancing Covid-19 protocols, with a live stream for national media watching from home that was badly produced and marred by multiple mistakes and bad production values.

Merlin Naicker, the SABC's head of TV, said that "we are creating a new SABC3 and we are taking note of industry trends and taking the schedules of SABC1 and SABC2 into consideration - the idea is to make sure that our audience will always find something that they will enjoy or that they can relate to on the SABC's channels".

Pat van Heerden said that "we're in a very congested television landscape and most of the channels that are coming in are international and when we look at that, people are reduced to an algorythm. We have the opportunity as the SABC to speak to the citizens of our country".

"We have the privilege of creating a channel which our citizens can be connected to - and that's the privilege we have: connection. When you look at international channels like Netflix they don't have that connection - that ability to speak to our audiences, to get reflections back."

A progressive millenial channel

"We're creating a channel in which our citizens belong, we have a conversation with them - and then we thought what else is out there in terms of SABC1 and SABC2? What can S3 offer?"

"We're looking at becoming a progressive millennial channel in which we're speaking to the generation that has to face the future, that has to work in this economy, and we thought how can we become part of the conversation in terms of becoming future-fit - and that's what we're doing."

"SABC3 is opening up a dialogue, a dialogue about being a citizen, being conscious, being environmentally friendly, looking at the crises facing the planet; and then looking at what global entertainment can we offer citizens basically for free that you have to pay on subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) services for," Pat van Heerden said.

"This is your public broadcaster giving you fantastic programming and curating a dialogue with our audiences."

"What we're done is to look out into the rest of globe and take programming from Australia and New Zealand, Canada, Brazil, Turkey - and we've really selected programmes that we think will speak to someof the issues that we have in our country and some of the things that we like to celebrate."

"Locally, we're looking at some dramas and building prime time with a new daily drama called The Estate."

Opening up

Pat van Heerden said the new slogan of "Open Up" is "about opening up about discussing our differences, finding commonality, opening up to seeing the rest of the world, opening up to their stories and seeing ourselves as global citizens".

About the switch to a lime green S3 logo on blue, Pat van Heerden said S3 is "not a natural history channel but we will be conscious about the environment". 

"We want to do entertaining programming around environmental issues. You have thrillers being made in Australia, you have a thriller from Brazil set in an eco-warrior landscape, so it's about the content but entertaining content."

ALSO READ: SABC3 adds the telenovelas Orphans of a Nation from Brazil and The Red Room from Turkey from April to join its locally-produced The Estate.

SABC3 adds the telenovelas Orphans of a Nation from Brazil and The Red Room from Turkey from April to join its locally-produced The Estate.

by Thinus Ferreira

SABC3 is adding two foreign telenovelas in April to complement its new locally-produced telenovela, The Estate, with both Orphans of a Nation from Brazil and The Red Room from Turkey joining the channel's schedule.

Orphans of a Nation (Órfãos da Terra) created by the Emmy Award winners Thelma Guedes and Duca Rachid tells the harrowing love story set within the modern-day context of refugees and immigrants from around the world who leave their countries for various reasons.

Orphans of a Nation that won an Emmy for best telenovela in 2020 starts in war-torn Syria and follows characters as they flee as refugees to Brazil. The telenovela will be broadcast from Mondays to Wednesdays from Monday 5 April at 18:30.

In the telenovela, Laila (Julia Dalavia) and Jamil (Renato Góes) arrive in Brazil to try to live the love that united them while they were still in the Middle East but she is a Syrian refugee and he is an employee of the powerful Sheik Aziz Abdallah, who forcibly took Laila as one of his wives.

"Orphans of a Nation has a great big love story at the centre of it but it also manages to place the drama in the real world of our time," says Pat van Heerden, SABC3 channel head.

"It awakens in us a sense of our connections as a country to the plight of our own refugees in South Africa that too have their love stories and pain from fleeing their native lands."

On Thursdays and Fridays at 18:30, SABC3 is scheduling the Turkish telenovela The Red Room (Kirmizi Oda) that premieres on Thursday 8 April and that is set inside a therapy clinic.

The Red Room - so-called for the colour of the practice's therapist Doctor Hanim (Binnur Kaya) - is based on the real-life experiences of an Istanbul doctor and writer Gülseren Budayicioglu.

"Thematically the show deals with the idea of confronting past trauma to be able to come into one’s full potential life - it depicts woman dramatically dealing with past abuse to want to live again," says Pat van Heerden.

"All of the fictional characters dramatized stories are based on real-life characters. This show will go out twice a week and it is meant to connect with the present South Africa we live in, where so many women live with abuse in their daily lives – here in The Red Room we see dramatic stories of hope and recovery."

The episodes are built around harrowing stories of the patients, while at the centre of the drama is the team of therapists in the clinic, and their own personal issues. These stories will be familiar to women, men and even children around the world and will open the eyes of many more.

"The Red Room is about reaching out as a real public service broadcaster to show a programme about overcoming violence and trauma in a community through therapy," says Pat van Heerden.

Orphans of a Nation and The Red Room lead into The Estate at 19:00 as SABC3's new locally-produced telenovela that replaces Isidingo.

SABC3’s new locally-produced weekday telenovela The Estate from Clive Morris Productions to launch in April as a cornerstone of the TV channel's latest repositioning effort.

by Thinus Ferreira

The mysteries, deceit and secret desires all locked behind a suburban gated community will be spilling out in SABC3's new locally-produced The Estate that will start in April as its new weekday telenovela as SABC3 once again tries to reposition the public broadcaster's struggling TV channel.

The Estate - produced by Clive Morris Productions also responsible for the new Isono telenovela on ViacomCBS Africa's BET and SABC2's Vutha telenovela - is SABC3's replacement for Isidingo that was canned after 21 years and ended a year ago in March 2020.

The Estate that will compete with M-Net's Legacy, produced by Tshedza Pictures, will delve into various South African hot-button issues and forms the new bedrock of the SABC3's latest programming attempt to turn around the struggling channel's image and ratings decline over the past decade.

Just like Isidingo did in its heydey when it caused buzz for things like introducing Nandipha as an HIV-positive character, SABC3 tasked Clive Morris Productions to stir the pot with a mix of diverse colourful families living inside and outside of Echelon Estate. 

The new series will be tackling issues in storylines ranging from land and identity, corruption, patronage, money both old and new, as well as power struggles, as well as class and equality.

The Estate will revolve around the people living inside the beautiful homes of Echelon Estate with its manicured gardens, landscaped green parks, a clubhouse, a gym and a golf course - all surrounded by an 8-metre high brick wall and tight security.

Inside Echelon Estate the super-elite are secretly struggling to keep up appearances, while the struggling middle class is trying to keep up with the neighbours, while the working glass "help" serve the champagne, and are little more than "labouring visitors" in this wonderland, although they see and hear everything.

Somewhat similar to The River on 1Magic, troubling is also brewing outside the wrought-iron gates of the estate, with growing pressure around a land claim from the neighbouring Thembalethu township, as privileged Echelon Estate residents fear that the "peasants will be storing the castle".

Long-buried secrets will literally be unearthed in The Estate, SABC3 says, as a deal with the devil is revealed between two bad men.

"The Estate is a metaphor, a symbol of modernity and status - but the show begs the question: Is this all we aspire to as humans? When is enough, enough?" says Pat van Heerden, SABC3 channel head.

"The show tells moving tales of family, loyalty, love, sacrifice, betrayal and human foibles while addressing some of the issues in our country as we scramble our way into the future."

"Clive Morris Productions and the SABC content team have brought us a cutting-edge telenovela which will serve our citizens with world-class storytelling with an award-winning cast, writers and incredible production value. South Africans are in for a treat," she says.

"The Estate forms part of an exciting chapter of SABC3 where the channel is repositioning to reflect a modern, complex and thoughtful South Africa. We will announce these exciting developments."

According to Clive Morris Productions, The Estate will incorporate themes like "identity and heritage, historical disempowerment and the fight for true economic freedom, truth vs lies, corruption and its consequences and other social issues that have relevance and resonance, in the current state of South Africa".

"The show will reflect a wide mix of diverse characters that speak to the 3 strata of society and how they are interconnected. As Clive Morris Productions we are incredibly excited to tell this story."

The Estate cast includes the Phakathwayo family with Sdumo Mtshali as Solomuzi, Jo-Anne Reyneke as Lwandle, Sparky Xulu as Siya, Linda Sebez as Goniwe, Zenokuhle Maseko as Sindi and Aubrey Poo as Castro Kamanga.

The Mokobane family is portrayed by Don Mlangei as Shadrack, Clementine Mosimane as Mmathsepo and Mpho Sibeko as Dumisani. 

The Van Wyk family has Jacques Blignaut as Martin and Carla Classen as Tessa as part of the cast, while the newcomer Molefe family is played by Dineo Langa in the role of Mmakoena and Matli Mohapelo as Lesiba.

In the Le Roux family, Nadia Velvekens will be seen as Suzaan, Penny Wolhurter plays Leah and Charlie Bouguenon was cast in the role of Ryan.

Viewers say SABC3 has gone from classy content to a porn hub following Sunday night's broadcast of sexually graphic film.

by Thinus Ferreira

On Monday viewers started lamenting about how the South African public broadcaster's once classy SABC3 has apparently gone trashy and became a "porn hub" following Sunday night's broadcast of a sexually graphic film.

For its last Sunday before Christmas, SABC3 broadcast the R-rated film, The Devil Knows You're Dead.

The SABC3 broadcast on Sunday instantly drew parallels under viewers with when the rival free-to-air commercial broadcaster e.tv used to broadcast the softcore porn film series Emmanuelle during weekends in late-night timeslots.

e.tv eventually ended the scheduling practice after market research indicated that the impact of tawdry content on its brand diminished its ability to lure advertisers during other timeslots.

Unlike Emmanuelle that was slotted close to or after midnight, SABC3 broadcast The Devil Knows You're Dead at 22:30 on Sunday.

The Devil Knows You're Dead, directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, contains strong graphic sexuality, nudity, violence, drug use and language, including blasphemy with South Africa's Film and Publication Board (FPB) that gave it a 16VSL age-restriction.

The FPB certificate for the 2007-film notes the "very strong, very frequent, including blasphemy" language, "fairly frequent, strong" nudity and "fairly frequent" sex scenes, as well as "fairly frequent" violence.

The Broadcasting Complains Commission of South Africa (BCCSA) told TVwithThinus that by the end of Monday it had received no written complaints from viewers, although people did complain on social media, while others joked that they will now start watching SABC3 because of the perceived broadcast of pornography.

SABC3, where Pat van Heerden is currently the channel head, in response to a media enquiry, on Tuesday told TVwithThinus that "The Devil Knows You’re Dead is a high art movie with a stellar cast of some of the finest American actors with famous director Lumet which was part of the SABC 3 December schedule for broadcast Sunday, 20 December at 22:30".

"The movie was promoted with a full house warning and placed outside of primetime as per the programme viewer restrictions. Viewers can continue to enjoy our festive viewing and catch this Sunday night’s Death and the Maiden at 21:30," SABC3 said.

The channel didn't respond to a question asking why the SABC decided to buy and schedule the film and how the film fits into SABC3's brand identity.

SABC3 as the South African public broadcaster's only commercial TV channel continues to fight an uphill battle with viewers, ratings, advertisers and brand identity after all started to slip the past decade.

SABC3 cancelled a litany of longrunning signature series and soaps over the past 3 years without getting replaced while the long-overdue switch from analogue to digital broadcasting has seen the viewership of the SABC's smallest TV channel ebb further to just over a million viewers during a good month.

In November SABC3's highest-rated broadcast was an Afcon 2021 qualifier match on 13 November that lured 1.24 million viewers (3.21 AR, 15.4 share).  

"SABC3 no longer has viewers so they made it a tlof tlof channel," said a viewer on Twitter where SABC3 trended for a period of time on Monday.

"Who needs Pornhub when you have SABC3?" asked another. "SABC3 is now a porn channel?" asked Tshegofatso Mphehelo.

Who needs Pornhub when you have SABC 3? pic.twitter.com/RHNGTQlgMe

— Lehlohonolo (@nolomoifa) December 21, 2020

Sabc 3 is now a porn channel?💀🙌🏾💀💀💀 pic.twitter.com/89ZC8Gkbxm

— ✨Tshegofatso Mphehlo🇿🇦 (@TshegofatsoMph9) December 21, 2020

"Looks like SABC3 is coming alright," said Nkosinathi Phaka, while Lebogang Shovhote remarked: "It's a pity. Out of all 3 SABC channels, SABC3 always had classy content".

 

Looks like sabc 3 is coming alright pic.twitter.com/IzyMjlzuhd

— Emm trill-nificent (@nkosinathiphaka) December 21, 2020

It's a pity. Out of all 3 SABC channels, SABC 3 always had classy content

— Lebogang Shovhote (@runningdivva) December 21, 2020

Lwazi Msomi lamented: "Isidingo. Ripley's Believe it or Not. Charmed. National Geographic. Top Billing. When SABC3 was still SABC3."

- Isidingo

- Ripleys Believe it or not

- Charmed

- National Geographics

- Top Billing

When SABC 3 was still SABC 3. pic.twitter.com/FqULTfbJMK

— Lwazi Msomi (@RealLwaziMsomi) December 21, 2020

The SABC is replacing its cancelled local weekday soap Isidingo with repeats of Isidingo in primetime, for months.

by Thinus Ferreira

The SABC is replacing the axed Isidingo on SABC3 with ... repeats of Isidingo in primetime.

After cancelling the 21-year old local weekday soap with a large ensemble cast - which like other programming SABC3 has become too expensive given the dwindling ratings of the struggling channel - the SABC isn't replacing it for now with something new immediately, even though it has had months to prepare.

Similar to how repeat episodes of Top Billing fill the timeslot after the last original Top Billing episode when that show was abruptly cancelled, the end of original Isidingo episodes will make way for archive repeats.

The SABC announced in November 2019 that it is ending Isidingo created by Gray Hofmeyr, originally produced by Endemol SA, later Endemol Shine Africa and then Pomegranate Media, with the final episode that was filmed on 24 January 2020. 

The axe came down so quick and unexpected that the final episode was already written which didn’t give the production time to plan and rewrite any broad or proper farewell episode although it managed to make slight changes.

Isidingo's axing is part of several cancellations of other local and international shows on SABC3 with the channel's ratings that has fallen to between 900 000 and a million viewers monthly for its most-watched fare.



After the series finale of Isidingo on SABC3 on Thursday 12 March at 19:00, SABC3 will run Isidingo repeats for the next few months in the middle of primetime, selecting specific episodes from across the years to reshow.

According to insiders SABC3 is still searching for new content for the timeslot and will stay with Isidingo repeats until a "new SABC3 schedule kicks in" at some point later in 2020.

The "Isidingo tribute" of repeat episodes will continue for at least two months on SABC3 through April and May, with various "themed" episodes that won't tell any connected story besides being set in the fictitious "The Deep" community. 

Friday 13 March and Monday 16 March will be "birthday celebration" episodes, followed by various Isidingo themes starting from Tuesday 17 March.

"We are working on a strategy going forward to ensure that SABC3 becomes a financial and ratings success," Pat van Heerden, the new SABC3 channel head, tells TVwithThinus.

"We are in the process of consolidating this strategy. In the short-term we will be offering our viewers a chance to take a trip down memory lane and celebrate the best moments brought to us by the longrunning program, Isidingo."

"We feel that the curating of the special moments over decades would be a fitting farewell to a longrunning series that has done so well for SABC 3 in the past."

After a year and a half SABC3 has a permanent channel head again with Pat van Heerden taking on the massive challenge of trying to return the struggling channel to its former glory.

by Thinus Ferreira

After limping along for a year and a half without someone in charge SABC3 once again has a permanent boss with Pat van Heerden who has taken up the challenge of being channel head of the South African public broadcaster's struggling commercial TV channel.

Patricia van Heerden, known in the biz as Pat, is now running SABC3 since the beginning of 2020. David Makubyane was acting SABC3 channel head for a year and a half following the departure of Aisha Mohamed in July 2018.

Pat van Heerden has taken up the reigns as SABC3 channel boss, coming from Media24 where she was the head of content and scheduling for the Afrikaans lifestyle channel VIA (DStv 147) since 2015.

She's also held various positions including co-producer of An Act of Defiance - The Bram Fischer Story; owner, producer and director at Public Nature Media) and co-chairperson of the South African Screen Federation (SASFED).

Pat van Heerden is no stranger to the media industry and before she joined the SABC as a factual commissioning editor for SABC1 in 2001, she directed the opening film for the Apartheid Museum, a PBS documentary called A Woman’s Place and other documentaries. 

At the SABC she previously also served as the head of entertainment between 2004 to 2009, and was the head of content and an executive producer at Connect TV creating TV formats like My Perfect Wedding and other shows for M-Net's Mzansi Magic (DStv 161) channel.

Pat van Heerden also worked for the Al Jazeera TV news channel in the Middle East as head of editorial and senior producer of one of its weekly current affairs programmes.

She has a Master of Philosophy (Public History), Master of Arts (History and Documentary Film) from New York University, Bachelor of Arts, Honours (International History), Higher Diploma in Education (English, History, Film, Phys Ed), Certificate in Drama Script Editing and a Bachelor of Social Sciences (English Literature, Industrial Sociology, History).

"I am delighted that SABC has given me the support and opportunity to take up this challenge in this highly volatile media landscape," says Pat van Heerden. "I'm determined to serve the citizens, the film and television industry and the SABC – the task will require us all working together."


Massive task

Patricia van Heerden faces a gargantuan task in trying to turn around the severely-crippled SABC3 as the public broadcaster's only commercial TV channel that has seen its fortunes, brand and ratings slide the past decade after once being a money-making TV jewel in the SABC crown.

SABC3 has been in a ratings, image and content slide for over a decade which saw the channel go from a reputation for quality shows and a sought-after brand under advertisers with appointment television, to facing severe programming and content, financial and management problems.

The past few years have seen SABC3 suffer major programming, content and scheduling problems, the non-delivery of scheduled programming and abrupt last-minute changes, dated on-air content and the loss of experienced personnel from on-air managers to schedulers. 

Lackluster programming and a string of cancellations have left the SABC3 scheduling line-up threadbare with the channel no longer able to afford to keep costly and ratings-challenged shows like Days of Our Lives, The Bold and the Beautiful, Days of Our Lives, 3Talk or its replacement Real Talk, Top Billing or even its iconic and longrunning local soap Isidingo on the air.

SABC3 ratings have stagnated between 900 000 and a million viewers per month for its most-watched shows with the channel struggling to attract eyeballs or producers who are wary of doing shows that might abruptly be cancelled after the premature termination of High Rollers in November 2016 despite a contract.

While SABC3 advertising and sponsorship income is supposed to subsidise the SABC's public mandate SABC1 and SABC2 channels, the reversal in fortune over past years has seen the opposite happen where those channels have to make money to cross-subsidise SABC3.

While persistent rumours inside parliament and the South African TV industry continue about the possibility of the SABC selling off and effectively "privatising" SABC3, the public broadcaster has denied that SABC3 is a "non-core" asset, saying SABC3 will not be put up for sale. 

In her new role Pat van Heerden will have to try and rejuvenate and inject new life into the schedule and content of the damaged SABC3 brand which has fallen behind with the aggressive growth in satellite pay-TV and free-to-air satellite TV like DStv and Openview,  as well as video-on-demand (VOD) streaming services, and even YouTube in South Africa.

All of these have steadily been siphoning away the high-income and highly desirable audience that used to be SABC3's target market with the channel that has been mired in an identity and brand crisis, unsure of how to transform content-wise, how to effectively compete to win back viewers and ratings or with what type of content offering.