Last week the SABC 2 released a statement announcing that they will be cutting down both 7 de Laan and Muvhango to 3 episodes per week. Die Sentrum will be taking 7 de Laan’s Thursday and Friday slot while Muvhango’s Thursday and Friday slot will be taken by the Xitsonga soapie, Giyani.
This was not warmly welcomed by 7 de Laan fans who felt the show did not deserve to be cut. The viewers started a petition to stop SABC 2 from cutting down 7 de Laan’s episodes.
SABC 2 slams petition for 7 de Laan to stay
Unfortunately the SABC 2 did not come to party. Instead the SABC 2 made it clear that their move to diversify shows as well as ratings and viewership infoem their decision. The statement read;
This change forms the SABC 2’s channel strategy to increase and diversify it’s drama offering and provide audiences with entertaining, fres, diverse and relevant local content. This will enable sabc 2 to showcase different storirs which represent the diversity of our nation. The new programme also offers more opportunities for independent producers to bring their creative works to the channel. It must be noted that the SABC’s programming strategy is informed by viewership statistics as supplied by the Broadcast Research Council of South Africa. This industry body measures the success and popularity of TV programming in South Africa that the SABC considers when making any programme decisions. Viewers can therefore be assured that they will not lose 7 de Laan as it will still broadcast from Monday to Wednesday. The SABC as a public broadcaster is mandated to provide South African citizens with diverse programming in their native languages. Therefore the diversification of Afrikaans programme offering is a demonstration of its commitment to fulfilling this mandate.
Changes to the SABC 2 programme will come into effect later in the year although no definite date has been set as yet.
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