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- From October, 7de Laan on SABC2 will be back on air five days a week.
- This comes after the SABC cut the popular soapie to three episodes a week earlier this year.
- "7de Laan is delighted at the SABC's decision to bring back the show to 5 days a week," said the production.
The Afrikaans weekday soap 7de Laan on SABC2 is returning to a full 5-days a week while the Venda weekday soap Muvhango remains a full-week show, bringing to an end the SABC's failed experiment to cut down on the episodes for both series to try out other programmes in their timeslots.
From the week of Monday 4 October, 7de Laan is back to broadcasting five episodes per week on SABC2. The channel has not yet issued any statement about the soapies' return to full-week episodes.
"7de Laan is delighted at the SABC's decision to bring back the show to 5 days a week," the production told Channel24 on Friday. "We know that our fans are over extremely appreciative and excited for this. We owe much of their persistent request to the return. Viewers can now enjoy an entire week of their favourite show without the long anxious wait. Best of all, the months ahead are packed with nail-biting, love-hate and comedic storylines."
Earlier this year, the South African public broadcaster angered viewers when it announced a shocking SABC2 schedule shake-up.
The SABC confirmed that it would cut back 7de Laan, produced by Danie Odendaal Productions, from five to just three episodes per week from April. The SABC also confirmed that it would be cutting back on Muvhango, produced by Word of Mouth Pictures, from August, with the popular primetime soap also seeing its episodes reduced from five to just three episodes per week.
It led to a petition signed by over 7 000 concerned viewers, and the SABC saying that it won't back down from its plan to "make more room for drama".
The SABC, in another statement shortly after that, said that "a public petition was circulated, in an attempt to prevent the SABC from diversifying its content on SABC2". This was, however, not what the petition from concerned viewers was actually about; viewers were not against diversifying programming, but concerned about losing weekday episodes of their shows.
READ MORE | Furious fans sign 7de Laan petition to try and save the soapie
Merlin Naicker, the SABC's head of TV, said that reducing the episodes of 7de Laan and Muvhango was "part of our long-term plan to invest in quality local content" and that "it is imperative that we come with innovative and exciting content, which will not only draw the viewership but bring in the revenue required to keep the public service broadcaster financially sustainable."
The SABC considers both long-running series as having somewhat run out of steam creatively and thought that gradual timeslot replacements would yield viewership bumps from new shows.
7de Laan was reduced to three episodes to make way for Die Sentrum, but the show from Penguin Films, which aired on Thursdays and Fridays, never got the viewership traction 7de Laan has, with lower ratings in SABC2's 18:00 timeslot.
Before the debut of Die Sentrum, the SABC, in a statement, said that it was "confident that this new programme will be a drawcard and, like 7de Laan, will keep the channel's loyal viewers entertained for the remainder of the week."
In July, 7de Laan lured around 1.2 million viewers to SABC2, while Die Sentrum hovered around 720 000 per episode. This is far below 7de Laan and represents a net loss of thousands of viewers in the timeslot and also forced SABC2 to lower ad rates during the slot, meaning less revenue for the broadcaster.
Meanwhile, the promised second season of the Xitsonga telenovela Giyani, produced by Tshedza Pictures, never materialised in Muvhango's 21:00-timeslot from August with no explanation to viewers or an update to the TV industry.
Neither the SABC nor SABC2 channel head Gerhard Pretorius made any further public statements before August that Giyani isn't going to start, or since, about why Giyani didn't start last month on Thursday and Friday nights, as initially promised.
According to insiders, the Covid-19 pandemic severely delayed Giyani production, and SABC2 couldn't get the show on air in time.
Covid-19 hugely impacted development and production on Giyani, and the production couldn't deliver episodes for playout from August as planned, although production is now in full swing. No new SABC2 broadcast date is available.
