SABC3's
new 80% local content schedule starts today (4 July) and it exposes the SABC as being utterly out of touch with the youth of our country. So out of touch that the broadcaster doesn't know what time our children go to school!
SABC3's new line-up includes a daily talk show called
Tween Talk Live, aimed at tweenz between the ages of 9 to 12. The major problem is that it's on while tweenz are still at school!
It airs at 14h00 daily and schools only close at 14h00 or 14h30 for this age group. TVSA contacted schools around the country to check their times and every school we spoke to confirmed that children in Grades 3 to 7 only end at 14h00 or 14h30.
Both Molaetsa Primary School in Soweto and Pinehurst Primary School in Cape Town end at 14h30 and Durban Primary School and Athlone Primary School end at 14h00.
According to Durban Primary, the Grade 1s to 7s end together at 14h00 because many of the children get transport home so the younger and older children need to travel together. The earliest they get home is 15h00. According to the other schools, many of their children only get home at 15h30 or 16h00 when they attend sport.
This means that every tween across the country will miss Tween Talk
or they need to bunk school to watch i.e. our state broadcaster's encouraging tweenz to bunk school.
It's not an issue during the school holidays of course but it isn't only airing at 14h00 in the holidays - this is the permanent timeslot it's been given and it's on the schedule at 14h00 once the holidays end after 18 July.
The SABC's wasted money on a show that won't be seen by the people it's meant for, which indicates that they don't care about our tweenz at all.
The only solution is for the time to change.