It's almost time for AFCON to kill the soapies by hijacking SABC1. The SABC's continued failure to deliver a dedicated sports channel has a major impact again this year by upstaging the country's
three most popular shows - the life blood of SABC1.
There should be a broadcasting act against it!
To make matters worse, the three soapies have been given unequal treatment by the SABC, with Generations taking the biggest brunt of the impact.
Skeem Saam and Uzalo move to SABC2 for the duration of AFCON which starts on Saturday, 14 January. They will both air at their regular times of 18h30 and 20h30 respectively.
It's a very different situation with Generations which faces a double whammy of extended upheaval. It's going to replace High Rollers on SABC3 for the duration of the tournament, which will have a dramatic impact on its viewership.
SABC3 isn't available everywhere in the country which means that many Gen fans are going to be left without their nightly dose of their favourite show for weeks on end.
How many will be impacted?
An exact number isn't available right now because there isn't a measurement tool for measuring how many people are unable to access each SABC channel across the country. This is going to change during 2017.
According to the Broadcast Research Council, these numbers are going to be accessible this year because of the implementation of a new ES.
However, there is a figure that gives an indication of the reach of the each channel by measuring how many people watch SABC1, 2 and 3.
e.g. In week 46 of 2016 (14 November - 20 November) this is how many viewers tuned in to each channel:
SABC 1 = 11,789,589 viewers
SABC 2 = 5,489,809 viewers
SABC 3 = 2,384,917 viewers
The difference between each is huge.
The impact of AFCON will be felt from 14 January 2017 to 5 February.
This what SABC2's schedule will look like for the duration of the tournament:
Monday to Friday at 18h00:
Tswana / Sotho News
Monday to Friday at 18h30:
Skeem Saam
Monday to Friday at 19h00:
7de Laan
Monday to Friday at 19h30:
Nuus
Monday to Wednesday at 20h30:
Uzalo
Monday at 20h00:
Navy NCIS will go on break and returns in a new slot in February. Nhlala ya Rixaka will air instead.
Tuesday at 20h00:
Afrikaans drama goes on break and returns in a new slot in February. Ngula ya Vutivi will air instead.