SABC signs partnership with BBC Studios for 2-hour primetime content block on SABC3 from May.

by Thinus Ferreira

In a groundbreaking deal, South Africa's public broadcaster has acquired a raft of premium BBC content from BBC Studios that will play out as a 2-hour primetime block on weeknights on SABC3 from May in the SABC's attempt to try and revive the ratings and fortunes of the ailing TV channel.

From May the South African public broadcaster is joining with Britain's public broadcaster in unlocking an archive avalanche of high-quality content that until now was only accessible to MultiChoice's DStv subscribers who had access to the collection of traditional pay-TV channels run globally by BBC Studios.

The curated BBC Studios content as part of a multi-million rand licensing and partnership deal with the SABC will run on weeknights between 21:00 and 23:00 on SABC3 and will also be made available on the SABC+ video streaming service.

Dubbed "BBC Primetime" it will include award-winning British drama series, documentaries, lifestyle programming and factual entertainment ranging from Top Gear (seasons 14 to 17) and Luther to Death in Paradise.

Initial titles in the 2-hour block will include Cheaters, We Hunt Together, Top Gear, Billion Dollar Downfall, Sex Actually with Alice Levine, Louis Theroux Forbidden America, Undercover, Secrets of Sugar Baby Dating, Death in Paradise, Our Girl, Luther, MotherFatherSon, Critical, Louis Theroux Dark States, Trafficking Sex, Press, as well as Nigeria's Female Suicide Bombers.

The SABC hopes to lift viewership and lure advertisers to SABC3 as the public broadcaster's only commercial TV channel but also its most troubled and the most ratings-challenged of its three legacy TV channels.

"I am so excited to launch our first BBC branded block in Africa with SABC," says Pierre Cloete, BBC Studios Africa commercial director.

"BBC Primetime will be hand-picked for S3 audiences, packed with a selection of incredible programming from our award-winning catalogue. From intense thrillers, crime dramas and inspiring documentaries, this marks our first block for free-to-air audiences in South Africa, giving 13 million homes access to BBC Studios shows. I can't wait for the 2024 launch."

Asked how the deal came about, Cloete said "the DNA between the BBC and the SABC is almost the same - the BBC's got the same mandate as the SABC. That connection is very important".

"We understand public broadcasting, we understand audiences. When we spoke with the SABC it was a no-brainer to work together and to bring something special and unique to audiences."

Binge-watch BBC dramas

Pierre Cloete said "drama we know is super important - but not in the old, traditional way of scheduling drama one episode, once a week.

"BBC dramas will be scheduled Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays as a strip on SABC3, so you can basically binge-watch these, plus get it on SABC+ as a 14-day catch-up so you can watch a whole series in one go, which I think is amazing".

"We're also pushing documentaries - I think there's a huge demand for that on SABC3. Thirdly, we're also putting entertainment into the mix. We're taking proven content, we're taking premium strategies and implementing it into this block."

David Makubyane, the SABC's head of TV channels, says "One of the important things that we had to look at is the commercial sustainability of the SABC".

"You can go with the old way of doing business. That's why we started looking at different models. There are a variety of models that we look at. This one in particular looks at a BBC block of content on SABC3 from 21:00 until 23:00. This will now be a BBC-branded block. This is a new model for the SABC. We're not talking about library content. We're talking crème de la crème BBC."

"It's the latest BBC crème de la crème content that's going to sit there, with us partnering and making sure that the brand of SABC3 brings in audiences. At the same time the partnership ensures that we remain commercially viable."

"The content works because we are both public broadcasters. We know this is content that will resonate with the South African audience."

Asked about whether there could be any original BBC-SABC co-production for SABC3, Makubyane said "this is only the beginning".

"At the moment, it's obviously finished product but the relationship with the BBC is one where we are seeing how do we collaborate - how do we do co-productions? So yes, hopefully in the future we will start seeing that the SABC and the BBC co-produce content together."

Sane Zondi, SABC programming manager, says "This partnership with BBC Studios is born out of the need for us to fulfil our commitment in delivering high-quality international content to our viewers".

"We are excited to have access to a vast catalogue from the BBC and the unlimited world-class entertainment our viewers will be able to enjoy through BBC Primetime on SABC3. The deal allows us to bring back some of the iconic BBC titles to our viewers which formed weekly habitual viewing, with Top Gear being the most notable one."

"We look forward to seeing some of the sentiments and reactions across our social media platforms on this great new era on our channel."

SABC1 cancels LIVE AMP after 25 seasons, show will bow out with a "last dance' theme and viewers contributing memorable moments.

by Thinus Ferreira

The SABC has cancelled its long-running music show LIVE Amp on SABC1 with the 25th final season that will start on Friday 9 July.

The once-trendsetting show, produced by Urban Brew Studios, saw ratings fall over years with SABC1 that decided to end the programme that launched in 2007 as simply LIVE and that started Bonang Matheba's career who initially co-hosted with Andile Ncube.

Later presenters included Minnie Dlamini, Sizwe Dhlomo, Pearl Thusi, Loot Love, DJ Warras and Lerato Kganyago, with LIVE AMP that is currently presented by DJ Speedsta and DJ Lamiez.

SABC is branding the final LIVE AMP season as "The last dance" with the final season that will include guest appearances, as well as "reminiscent elements" looking back at some of the most influential moments from the show.

Viewers will also be given the chance to be "content contributors" and to share some of their most memorable moments. 

"The show has grown to become synonymous with youth Friday night rituals from more than a decade," says Sane Zondi, SABC programme manager.

"With season 25 being earmarked as the final season of this flagship title, the series content plan has been devised to be reflective and to be celebratory of iconic moments and success achieved by the show from a talent development, socio-cultural contribution, creative innovation, and all-round leading music TV show brand in Mzansi."

"The best, most memorable and unique content moments will be reinterpreted for the audiences combined with newly curated music performances."

New 3-year contract keeps SABC1’s Uzalo on-air until 2023, will help Stained Glass producers to improve the show's quality and boring storylines.

by Thinus Ferreira

South Africa's most-watched show Uzalo will remain on-air until at least 2023 after the South African public broadcaster signed a new 3-year deal with SABC1 saying it will help to improve the quality and storylines of the series that viewers say have become boring.

The new contract comes as the production is currently shut down and ended production last month - earlier this year than usual - while negotiations were still taking place about the show's renewal.

Production on the Stained Glass produced series in Durban was supposed to restart on 18 November but because no new deal with SABC1 was in place, producers decided to shut down work on the series for the remainder of the year. It means a longer Christmas break for the Uzalo cast and crew.

Production on Uzalo, owned by former president Jacob Zuma’s daughter, Gugulethu Zuma Ncube and Pepsi Pokane, will restart during the first week of January, with the new season that will start to broadcast in March 2021. 

The show told TVwithThinus that "production halted as part of its annual break and was to resume on 18 November 2020. However, due to the contracting process taking longer than anticipated, production has extended its break and will resume the first week of January 2020".

According to insiders, SABC executives have expressed unhappiness over some of the Uzalo storylines described as boring and recycled, as well as concerns by Uzalo cast and crew members that they're not being paid enough.

SABC1 says of the 3-year deal with Uzalo that "it is the first time that such a long-term arrangement has been put in place and it represents an unequivocal vote of confidence" that SABC1 places in the series.

Sane Zondi, SABC1 programme manager, says "Uzalo has earned it and its performance speaks for itself. The property has broken a set of records in the industry for a soap or long-running series".

"It's the youngest entry in the SABC stable and it is phenomenal what the property has managed to achieve despite the challenges this year has shown - not only in the broadcasting landscape but the country as a whole".

About improving the "boring" storylines the SABC says that the long-term deal "will provide the SABC and the production ample time to invest more in workshopping storyline developments with the view to producing more powerful storylines, thus impacting positively on the overall quality of the show".

Uzalo that was forced off-air for 5 weeks this year after it ran out of produced episodes because of the local impact of the global Covid-19 pandemic in South Africa, has remained the country and SABC1's most-watched TV show with 8.8 million viewers (22.75 AR) during October and around 4 million viewers watching Uzalo on SABC1 carried on MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV service.

On two occasions this year Uzalo hit 11.4 million (15 April) and 11.1 million (24 April) viewers after South Africa entered its lockdown period that led to a ratings surge across the board for broadcasters as more people stayed home.

Clara Nzima retires as SABC1 channel head, exits the South African public broadcaster after 35 years as top exec in charge of country's biggest TV channel.

Clara Nzima who has retired is out as SABC1 channel head, replaced by Sane Zondi as acting channel head of the South African public broadcaster's biggest TV channel and the country's most-watched channel.

There was no official public announcement from the SABC about the exit from the veteran TV executive but the broadcaster confirmed Clara Nzima's departure in response to a media enquiry.

Sane Zondi is SABC1's head of programming and will be the top exec in charge of SABC1 in an acting capacity until a permanent replacement and appointment is made. 

Sister channel SABC3 is likewise again without a permanent channel head following the exit of Aisha Mohamed last month, with David Makubyane, general manager for TV channels, standing in as acting SABC3 channel head for the time being.

Clara Nzima retired on 31 July after 35 years with the South African Broadcasting Corporation that she joined back in 1983 as a black woman during the apartheid heydey of the so-called "His Master's Voice" when the SABC more functioning as a state rather than a public broadcaster, was a National Party propaganda mouthpiece.

Clara Nzima started out as a production secretary and rose through the ranks over three decades and untold management and production turbulence within the SABC, to become commissioning editor, programme manager and eventually channel head.

She was SABC1 programme manager for 2 decades - from 1996 to 2016 - after which she became SABC1 channel head in September 2016 after she was acting channel head since February 2016.

Besides writing scripts for youth dramas like Zikhethele and Mina Nawe, Clara Nzima was the first commissioning editor on ratings juggernaut Generations that revolutionised SABC1's schedule, and in later years was responsible for SABC1's overall programming strategy as the public broadcaster's youth-focused channel.

Clara Nzima was part of the team who produced the country and the SABC's first Zulu clay animation show, and represented the SABC over many years at film festivals and TV and film markets around the world.

Ran South Africa's most-watched TV channel

In a Channel Africa radio in late-2016, Clara Nzima explained that "coming into television was somewhat by chance".

"I was just out of university looking for a job," she said "and the SABC was just one of the places I applied to and fortunately I got called in. In my application - not knowing television at all because at that time it was very new." TV started in SA in 1976.

"I got in as a production secretary. At that time the SABC still had a training institution internally, so we went for training for 6 months, and from there I went on to do youth and children's programmes which was quite fun, and also challenging."

As SABC1 channel head Clara Nzima said "it's quite an involved role because you're responsible for the running of the whole channel, whereas previously my experience was just the content side."

"Over many years since I got to management level - even as a commissioning editor in the channel - I've always insisted on having an assistant because for me succession planning is very important. I've even had an assistant as programming manager. And I think with all my assistants I've had one male - most were women."

"Development of women for me is very critical - not just within the SABC but with the productions that we deal with, even with the crew and writers - even with the stories: How do we portray women?"

Gender challenges in old SABC

About falling pregnant in the "old" SABC that was very male-dominated, Clara Nzima explained that "we were given such a hard time for taking maternity leave. We were refused maternity leave and we were told you take 6 weeks and you come back, or you're fired".

"That women these days can take 6 months is a victory. So we've come a long way within the SABC."

"The other thing that was quite refreshing in my journey with the SABC was when we had Prof Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri as a SABC chairwoman. She brought that female touch to the SABC."

"We're all born with potential. In life we will get obstacles. But what's important is what you do with those challenges. I think nothing is insurmountable. If you have the resolve to do something, it's within you," said Clara Nzima.

SABC1 on its new 'quite different' format music competition show The Remix SA that will be taking on Idols: 'For us it's a test actually'.

SABC1 says the public broadcaster's latest bet on a local version of a format music reality competition show, The Remix South Africa, is going to be a new test for the channel.

It comes as SABC1 gears up to do battle with pay-TV channels supplier M-Net and its Mzansi Magic (DStv 161) channel's long-running juggernaut reality singing competition show Idols on Sundays at 17:30.

SABC1 has scheduled The Remix SA's "performance episode" - the second episode of every week's two-parter edition, for Sundays at 18:00 in a testing-the-waters counter-programming move.

The Remix SA that is not from the United Kingdom or America but from Turkey sees contestants having to "remix" and come up with new versions of popular songs in a different genre.

In The Remix SA - with two weekly episodes on a Friday at 18:00, starting 20 July, and on Sundays at 18:00 with a half hour "performance" episode in front of a live audience - the SABC and SABC1 is hoping to find its own Idols after years of losing all of its big reality competition shows to e.tv and M-Net and not following up initial investments in other format competition shows with further seasons.

The past decade the SABC has seen a flurry of marquee tentpole shows from SA's Got Talent to Strictly Come Dancing SA and others switch from SABC1, SABC2 and SABC3 to e.tv and M-Net, while the broadcaster failed to do further second seasons of show like The X Factor SA on SABC1 that it would mount for a first season but not cultivate further.

Now SABC1 hopes to try again with The Remix SA, with co-presenters Rouge (Deko Barbara-Jessica Wedi) and KG (Kgaugelo KC Mokholwane) with Mo Flava and Kelly Khumalo as the judges, and Relebogile Mabotja as the show's musical director.

"The Remix South Africa for us is part of our continued commitment in unearthing and investing in youth talent and trying to be on par with where the culture is at," says Sane Zondi, SABC1 head of programming.

"It's a different format from all the other talent reality formats that have been in the landscape and that we're used to in that the formation of groups - although I don't want to call them 'groups' since they're not quite groups - that are on the show and competing to be South Africa's next big entertainment offering.

"It is quite different, structurally. It's quite a variety of skills within the entity that we're looking for - there's DJ skills, there's producing skills, mixed with vocal skills, and just general entertainment," says Sane Zondi.

"When you watch the show on a Sunday, which is the live performance, entertainment aspect of it, you'll see that there's quite a big production value that's expected of each of the ensembles that are entering and who are competing."

"So it feels like a concert that is being delivered on-air, on television, week in and week out."

"We're very excited about how it's actually going to be received. For us at SABC1 it's a test actually. Traditionally we've looked for formats in the typical territories of the TV world which is the United Kingdom and the United States, and we've gone and we've done something different."

"The Remix South Africa is a format that comes from the Asian part of the world, from Turkey specifically, and when we found it, we automatically and instinctively, we knew The Remix would make sense for SABC1," says Sane Zondi.

"This is where the trend is at. It's been a 2-year journey to have this thing on air so we're very excited about that."


'Have you ever heard that song this way?'

"You see groups of very talented people in groups of 3's and I look at these groups and think, 'Man, you can literally be the next best thing in South Africa," says co-presenter KG. "And that takes me back to my auditions standing in long queues where you're hoping to be the one".

"The contestants will have to remix songs that are already big and they have to come and go, 'Hey man, have you ever heard it this way?' Like you get a soul song and have reinterpret it as a gqom song."

His co-presenter, the hip hop artist Rouge says she can empathise with the contestants that viewers are going to see on The Remix SA.

"It's really, really tough purely because you are trying to do something that's almost impossible by remixing songs that are really out there and massive and making them yours so that people can really find your sound".

"So we let them know that it's really not easy, but when you get it right, you really get it right. Everyone's got to take songs that are original right now - whether it be hip hop, gqom or whatever genre - and they have to remix it within the genres that we tell them to remix it into."

"The beautiful thing about it is that the contestants are so talented. We have guitarists, we have people who play saxophone, we have amazing vocalists. We have amazing rappers. It just goes from one genre to the next."

After dismal day and timeslot moves that drove away millions, SABC finally backstracks to return Zaziwa to 7:30pm on weekdays from 15 November.

After dismal day and timeslot moves for its once hot Zaziwa show that drove millions of viewers away from the SABC1, the SABC is finally backtracking and will be restoring Zaziwa to where it originally worked - on a weekday at 19:30.

Zaziwa will return to the SABC1 programming line-up from 15 November at 19:30 - the same timeslot but on Wednesdays, not Thursdays like before.

"We have made a conscious effort to move Zaziwa to Wednesday, as the environment that we have built on Sunday - and has already shown returns, intentionally did not make room for other formats other than local drama," says Sane Zondi, SABC1 programming manager.

"We believe Zaziwa will be a complimentary offer on the existing entertainment line-up on Wednesdays."

The return to a semblance of normality for Zaziwa comes exactly a year after the SABC decided to mess with the hugely popular show that used to pull between 3.5 and 4 million viewers to the public broadcaster before millions abandoned the show following inexplicable timeslot and day changes that saw the audience erode.

SABC1 programming executives decided to uproot Zaziwa and to move it to Thursdays at 21:00, but in October 2016 backtracked at the very last minute.

For a short while, it seemed as if Zaziwa was safe.

Then in February 2017 the SABC ripped Zaziwa from the schedule and inexplicably transplanted it to Sunday nights at 20:30 - a lifestyle television "death slot" where, as predicted, viewers abandoned the show by the millions.

In August 2017 there was even more shame for the show when SABC1 channel head Clara Nzima quietly decided to dump Zaziwa from the schedule entirely to make space for yet another old rerun of Shaka Zulu, and to bring Zaziwa back in a few months' time.

Nobody told a flabbergasted Pearl Modiadie that her show is off the schedule and off the air, with the Zaziwa presenter who had to hear from the media and not the SABC that Zaziwa has abruptly been shelved from its struggling Sunday evening timeslot.

Now Zaziwa is coming back to SABC1 and its erstwhile 19:30 timeslot, just on a weekday that's a day earlier than what it always used to be.