After the public broadcaster announced that the Venda soap had been axed earlier in the month. It is now reported that Muvhango will return for a 26th season from August 5th with Leleti Khumalo joining the cast alongside a younger cast, logo and storyline.
The decision to continue on with Muvhango had to do with viewer's reaction over the sudden cancellation with the ratings to the rebroadcast reaching an all time low. The financially challenged broadcaster low on funds had no choice but to revive it.
Reruns are being scrapped ahead of its conclusion as those who were probably giving in to their democracy story and some who are actually watching it for the first time will be rather confused on why a different season has come on out of the blue.
With the SABC that had this to say in an enquiry:
"We had challenges. But we are here now and we are unveiling a new season," says Lala Tuku, acting group executive of SABC video entertainment, speaking at a hastily arranged media event in Fourways on Thursday night.
"We have no doubt that Muvhango will reach its targets for the slot, wink, wink. We've worked intensely with the team to bring you invigorated stories," she said.
She alluded that financial issues - the SABC is technically insolvent - and ratings - Muvhango has lost millions of viewers over the past decade - are the crux that caused "a tussle" in negotiations around signing Word of Mouth Pictures to bring Muvhango back for another season.
"The reality is that the SABC derives its revenue from advertising. We require audiences to choose to watch our content. The reality is we have brilliant content on our platform and we need our audiences to select it and come in."
New Afrikaans soap in development
When 7de Laan ended its run on 26 December 2023, the public broadcaster failed to replace the soap on time due to finance constraints. This led to reruns of the sitcom Vetkoekpaleis before most of the Afrikaans offering was redirected to SABC 3.
Word going around is that a new Afrikaans soap is in development for SABC 2 in 7de Laan's former timeslot. With most details still underwraps, this soap would therefore take on Kelders Van Geheime on e.tv and likely end up on a losing battle.
7de Laan was only able to pull almost half of Annekan Die Swa Kry's viewership. Die Sentrum which served as a companion to 7de Laan pulled much less than 7de Laan and with some already reliant on rival platforms this soap might fail to capture audiences.
Maybe moving it to SABC 3 will do less damage as Afrikaans news has more viewers on the channel than it did with SABC 2. Another being that SABC 3 was being positioned as a rival to KykNET and eExtra so it would make sense allocating it there.
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