MultiChoice is currently the biggest monopoly in the entertainment industry. Before only the rich could grace in its local luxuries now even the less fortunate where eMedia Investments resides can bask in its glory.
eMedia Investments like or not has slowly gone down that forgotten and risky path. SABC and eMedia Investments traded places years back on the dominant player.
e.tv had a large catalogue of local content like Mahadi: Lobola, I Love South Africa, Forgive And Forget and Backstage and the closest anyone had to foreign content was through old sitcoms, reality, movies and kids shows then it moved to become a free version of M-Net with the likes of Chicago PD, NCIS and How To Get Away With Murder and it's Mega Movies.
In 2018, eMedia Investments rolled out a 2 hour Afrikaans block called Kuiertyd onto eExtra offering reality, lifestyle, dramas, movies and dubbed telenovelas which became a massive success particularly for the telenovelas.
A year later, e.tv got into the Kuiertyd spirit and dedicated 1 hour to telenovelas which led to constant lineup changes for eExtra which increased Kuiertyd's broadcast hours on weekdays and complicated repeat hours for other programs.
e.tv's mornings used to be filled with reruns of international dramas from eExtra, sitcoms and Days Of Our Lives now that Kuiertyd removed international dramas from eExtra only Days remains in the mornings with Kuiertyd hogging the rest of the slots.
On the kasi side, e.tv attempted to dedicate 18:30 to local dramas and it only took those attempts to find their #1 which is Durban Gen at the moment.
On reality, Family Feud SA swoops on e.tv and becomes one of the top 20 watched shows. Rehashed reruns even dominated the slot as the channel was working on another season instead looking for another show to add variety.
The kids side on e.tv is where things kind of took a toll. For starters, they cancelled a ton of local productions such as Cool Catz, Frenzy and Sistahood then followed eExtra and dubbed some of the kids content particularly preschool (for now) in various South African languages.
SABC has been doing that for years no matter the age. It's amazing how none of this is on eToonz since it is a product of e.tv but looking back the channel didn't house all shows from Craze with included youth-based shows like Frenzy and Sistahood.
The latest local development is on eReality as the channel which only housed international content already viewable on e.tv and certain channels from DStv launched a 1 hour local reality block on weekends, eKasi.
eMovies is currently the only brand that is yet to adapt to this format. None that it hasn't done before just that it you haven't seen it on a full-time basis.
The government wants to enforce a local quota on streaming platforms similar to cable has for over a decade and last I checked e.tv abided by the mandate even before Kuiertyd existed, could this be eMedia Investments' way of saying local is lekker.
Read Also:
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- Analogue TV is going off air soon, be sure to get a decoder when purchasing a TV set
- Linear channels switch to 7 day viewing, Will SABC and e.tv viewers be able to cope
- SABC and e.tv ratings for April
- Judge Judy seen on e.tv ending after 25 seasons
- Is an SABC 4 and SABC 5 channel on the way?
- Details on SABC's kids brand (not SABC Education)
- Other shows coming soon to eToonz?
- e.tv acquired rights to Erkenci Kus
- SABC to launch a streaming service
- Current status of TV licence
- SABC planning to reduce Muvhango
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