As reported on TVSA in April, SABC 3 has been planning dramatic changes to the channel's early evening line-up, to take effect this October.
When we first dished the news, the plan was for
Isidingo to move to 18h00 to take it out of the timeslot which is packed with soapies across channels.
SABC3's October schedules have been confirmed and it turns out the change will definitely be happening but the time has changed: as from October the show will be on at
19h30 daily - as requested by TVSA's Makisto right here:
Open Letter to SABC 3: Soapie Blunders.
At the time of revealing the plan to make changes, acting channel head Ed Worster said that the channel had received positive feedback from viewers when Isidingo was on at this time during the Cricket World Cup so they've clearly seen that 18h00 wouldn't be a good time.
There's no sign of the planned
Bold and the Beautiful move from SABC1 to SABC3: this definitely
won't be happening. Word is it was in the pipeline but SABC1 don't have anything to replace it with.
As for what's happening in Isidingo's current 18h30 timeslot - this will become a comedy half hour with comedies on Mondays to Thursdays. A new cricket magazine show will be on Fridays.
Comedies in the October line-up include
30 Rock (on Mondays),
Outsourced (on Tuesdays),
Accidentally on Purpose (on Wednesdays) and Gabriel (on Thursdays).
3Talk and
Days of Our Lives change times too: 3Talk moves to 16h40 and Days of Our Lives moves from 16h30 to 17h40, as a lead in to the comedies.
Oprah should be finished by October but because of the late arrival of tapes it might not be. The new schedule has a repeat run of Oprah's 25th season on Mondays to Fridays at 14h50 but new episodes may be in this timeslot if the series hasn't ended yet. We'll keep you posted.
All these changes take place on Monday, 3 October 2011.
Smaller daytime changes begin in September:
All My Children moves from 09h30 to 14h00 from the second week of September and
Dr Oz moves to 14h50 in the same week. We'll clarify these in the teasers.
What do you think? Do the times work for you? Sound off below.