The Black Door has been cancelled on eTV. The news comes hot on the heels of Blackbrain celebrating airing the 100th episode just a few days ago on eTV. According to entertainment commentator Phil Mphela, the telenovela wasn’t pulling in the numbers as expected.
The channel reshuffled programs to accommodate the risque drama by moving one of the most watched Soapies on ETV, Imbewu.
The Black Door is a drama series that deals mainly with adult content and targets the older demographics.
Phil Mphela says that the Soapie’s numbers are not very impressive, and they have been continuing to dive since it began. The show has been pulling just under 2.6 million with an audience of 37.4 per cent for its time slot, which is every night at 21h30; the show was not making it.
This has come as a shock to all because the show boasts a stellar cast of legendary actors like Linda Sebezo, who plays one of the main leads as the Matron Rebecca Mabuza owns an illegal pleasure Brothel in a township.
The show recently recruited SK Khoza and his brother Abdul to bring their charm to the viewers.
The show is another one of Blackbrains originals that ends in a short space. A few weeks ago, the entertainment industry was taken aback by the cancellation of DiepCity after only a year of airing on Mzansi Magic.
Whats happening at The Black Door?
The Black Door received mixed reviews from viewers for the risque content that the drama was tackling.
It has only been on the air for four months, and several reasons could have caused the drama to bleed viewership.
The show airs late at night on weekdays and targets the young adult viewer preparing to go to work the next day and probably asleep by then.
The show has no repeats on eTV, it only repeats on VIU, and many don’t think it’s worth going into too much trouble to view this show because they haven’t developed enough relationships with it since it is relatively new.
Usually, eTV shows get an omnibus repeat on weekends for their viewers to catch up on episodes they missed during the week. The Black Door is not even on DSTV catchup.
The third reason could be that the viewers were not ready for the kind of content served by the series.
The comment section has gone entirely wild, wondering what is coming next.
Yesterday Mandla N held a live Instagram feed where he was interviewing ex-The Wife actor Zikhona Sodlaka and mentioned that Blackbrain is working on a new TV series. Could this be in response to the actions of the show?