Cancelled!
SABC3 has released the new schedule for the channel's 80% local quota shake-up which starts in July and long-running soapie favourite Days of Our Lives has been canned. Cropped. Dropped. Yanked from mid-July.
It disappears from Monday 21 July, replaced by Afternoon Express at 17h00 - which moves an hour later than its current time. The move is to accommodate a new afternoon local talk show called Real Talk, which starts at 16h00 and runs weekdays at the same time.
SABC3's clearly betting our money on this new talker which needs to pull in the numbers to pay the bills because Days is one of the channel's top shows. In May it scored an episode high of 1 024 933 viewers, making it the fifth most watched show on the channel for the month.
It's such a dramatic move that TVSA has been making enquires to find out if it's moving to SABC1 or 2 instead but neither channel has been able to confirm whether it is or not. We've also been unable to get comment from SABC3. We'll keep you posted if there's any news in this regard.
In contrast to Days, The Bold and the Beautiful remains safe.
Bold fans will be relieved to know that it's still on the schedule at its usual time of 18h00. As the channel's No. 1 show it would have been madness to cancel it.
Another international property to take a hit is The Amazing Race. The new season was supposed to start in July but it's been replaced by a new local show called Divas of Jozi.
There's no word on what's happening with Survivor but we assume that being in the same genre as The Amazing Race, it's been cancelled too.
Keep a lookout on TVSA for more about the changes and new local shows.