South Africa’s e.tv channel (owned by eMedia) has announced removing the American TV soap “Days of Our Lives” from its schedule to focus more on local programming,
According to BMA sources, the Managing Director of e.tv channels, Marlon Davids, stated that “adding a variety of shows on the e.tv schedule and working on creating new content means releasing redundant shows. Therefore, Day of Our Lives has to be discontinued from 11 April 2022.”
In place of the American soapie slot, e.tv will broadcast Isono, a Clive Morris Production that has been airing on Paramount Africa’s BET channel. This local show is scheduled to air at 20:30, following the channel’s news bulletin.
Another show set to move due to strategic programming is Imbewu. At the start of its 5th season, Imbewu will be moving to a 21:00 slot with a new local risque series, The Black Door, airing from Mondays to Fridays at 21:30.
The Black Door is a newly commissioned show, signed for 260 episodes. The plot centres around characters whose lives are entangled with a secretive brothel run by an owner known to be ruthless.
e.tv’s Managing Director described the timeslot updates as something needed for e.tv to create a flow that would navigate the audience in early primetime and, by that, keep them hooked on the channel.
Other changes by this first and only privately-owned free-to-air television station in South Africa include the removal of other American shows, namely, Chicago and NCIS. Furthermore, Sunday night shows have also been rescheduled to focus on local shows again.
The traditional 20:00 movie timeslot will now move to 21:00 as 20:00 will be dedicated to a local drama series.
eMedia’s Rewind channel is currently being rebranded and will be adding Viceland documentaries and current affairs, which will all be available on its OpenView platform.
