(As indicated in the sneak peeks)
MultiChoice’s ambition to tell stories that resonate with our customers, in their language and featuring characters they identify with drives our hyper- local content strategy, while developing industries across the African continent and helping take proudly African stories to global audiences. The company is the biggest funder of local content in Africa and produced 2 692 hours of local content in the last financial year – 41% more than the year before – bringing its local content library to nearly 66 000 hours.
“MultiChoice is home to over 42 local channels across the continent, each designed and curated to cater for regional tastes whilst simultaneously creating a platform to cross pollinate regional content,” says Yolisa Phahle, CEO of General Entertainment and Connected Video at Multichoice Group. “Our General Entertainment stable continues to command the lion’s share of viewership across the DStv Platform as we roll out our owned formats across Africa, strengthen our relationships with global co-production partners and continue to expand our repertoire”.
Looking forward to 2022, the big news on Mzansi Magic is the return of Big Brother Mzansi Season 3 in 2022 – with 24-hour coverage of a group of strangers living with each other in Biggie’s house and competing for the biggest ever prize of R2 million. Big Brother Mzansi will be broadcast across the African continent.
The fourth season of MasterChef South Africa comes to M-Net on 28 February, exactly a decade after the first season aired. Looking to inspire and shape the next generation of food stars, the series will be filmed at the foot of Table Mountain in a dynamic new location that celebrates both the heritage and the innovation of South Africa’s diverse culinary offering.
In Recipes for Love & Murder (March), when a woman who wrote to her seeking advice about an abusive husband is found dead, recipe advice columnist Tannie Maria and her colleague, rookie journalist Jessie, spring into action, determined to solve this small-town Karoo murder and catch the killer. Big city cop Khaya and his team of local police officers always find themselves just slightly behind our delicious detecting duo, as the investigation takes us through an array of unlikely suspects.
Throughout the series, we also meet the people writing to Maria for advice and the subjects of Jessie’s articles, as well as indulging in the delicious recipes Maria dreams up to help them solve their problems. The series is based on the best-selling novels by Sally Andrew. The series stars Maria Doyle Kennedy (Outlander, Orphan Black, Kin) and Tony Kgoroge (Black Sails, Invictus, Long Walk to Freedom).
Survivor South Africa is making an international splash, with producers Afrokaans elevating the local version to sit alongside the very best in the world. In 2022, Survivor SA returns for its 9th season - and this time the greatest game on earth will see a cast of returnee outcasts who were outwitted and outplayed on previous seasons battle it out to outlast and become the Sole Survivor. These players, who never made it to the final Tribal Council, all have a score to settle. Get ready for Survivor SA: Return of the Outcasts - on M-Net in July 2022.
The first season of the grand-daddy of international game shows - Wie word 'n Miljoener? - continues on kykNET in January, with the biggest payout to date has been R125 000. Who will survive the hotseat and put their general knowledge to the ultimate test by answering 12 questions with 4 life-lines - and the opportunity to win R1 million?
Op My Eish S2 starts in April with a new celebrity looking for love - Francois Jacobs. His wingman is comic Schalk Bezuidenhout. Entries for prospective partners closes on 5 December2021. What is our handsome actor/director looking for in a possible future partner? A lady with a passport!
The fifth and final season of SAFTA-winning Hotel sees the return of all the original key cast – this time, they’re navigating the madness of lockdown and the pandemic. James Borthwick is Ferdie, but this time around he is not the manager of the hotel – he is a permanent guest after his emigration to New Zealand didn’t go according to plan. Hotel is written by Bennie Fourie, Beer Adriaanse, Ryan Metcalfe and Claudia van Zyl and directed by Fourie.
kykNET has been keeping viewers glued to their screens on Tuesday evenings with gripping scripted content like Nêrens Noord Kaap and the anthology drama Spoorloos. In 2022, kykNET will continue in delivering the cliffhangers and mystery with the Die Byl S4 and Projek Dina returning for a second season. A new season of Spoorloos is currently in development with a story set behind the backdrop of a small coastal town.
There are also returns for Bertus Basson’s In die Sop, Boer Soek ‘n Vrou and Op Seer se Spoor (on kykNET&Kie).
On 1Magic, season 5 of The River continues to follow the diamond-divided Dlaminis and Mokoenas. In season 2 of Lingashoni, we continue to follow a poverty-stricken farm worker who returns to his former life as a high-flying businessman after a decade-long memory loss. The 3rd season of Real Housewives of Johannesburg returns in April with a bumper 14-episode season.
Debuting is Abasemzini, a bootcamp series which takes 4 pairs of mothers and daughters-in- law and put in a house to sort out their differences. This is done at the request from the one man they have in common - the mother’s beloved son and our bride’s husband. Also new is Makoti, where four women move in with their soon-to-be mother in-laws to prove they are worthy Makotis for their sons. Their will, values and adaptability are tested as they vie for their mother- in-law’s approval to marry her son.
In Wounds, a group of nurses at Healing Hands Medical Centre in the suburb of Motherwell are all used to having to deal with life and death situations on the daily. However, they are all sitting with their own psychological, emotional and physical wounds that are in dire need of attention. In Entangled, when overachieving perfectionist and hopeless romantic, Lethabo Tau is exposed for having lied about who the real father of her 8-year-old recluse son could be, she quickly goes from married to ‘it’s complicated’.
In season 2 of Mzali Wami, Ntokozo, a young girl taken from her mother at birth, gets entangled in an elaborate human trafficking ring involving her biological mother and the woman who stole her. After the success of the first season of Ingan’Yam, season two is reloaded with the breakout star of RHOD S1, the much-loved LaConco!
It’s two years after the explosive events of season one of The Republic and President Mulaudzi has won a second term - but only at considerable sacrifice. The second season focuses on two beautiful young South Africans who have felt all too personally the failure of government, as they strike back against the corruption that is eating away at the country. They become a modern-day Bonnie and Clyde, embraced by social media and South African society at large. Can they give South Africans new hope in a dark time?
While I Blew It (S4) and Ubizo (S3) return to Mzansi Wethu in 2022, there are also plenty of new, homegrown series, too – including Bangoxoshile, Not The One For You, Siza Mina and Fafi. Bangoxoshile is a series that assists homeless people who were forcefully removed from their homes by family, relatives or a spouse. The show host will consult with a property lawyer and then proceed to mediate and seek clarity with an aim of getting the complainant back their home. In Not The One For You, friends and family write in to ask for assistance in confronting a friend or family member about a potent relationship that they should not be in.
Siza Mina is a tabloid daily talk show featuring controversial topics and guests who are seeking intervention in resolving issues relating to family, marriage, parenting, divorce, broken friendships, cohabitation, unsettled debt and disputes around housing and contracts. Fafi’s 28-year-old Thandi Ndlovu is in love and getting married in 3 months - however it’s not her husband-to-be, Sgoloza Ndlovu, she’s in love with, rather her beloved late husband, Menzi Ndlovu. The Ndlovu family custom has dictated that upon Menzi’s demise, his brother must marry his widow.
Returning to VIA for a 4th and 2nd season, respectively, are Sjefhuis and Eendag. Sjefhuis takes eight young, ambitious chefs hungry for their big break and sets them up in a villa where they will duke it out to land an apprenticeship with the master chef Bertus Basson. In each episode of thrilling reality TV show Eendag, a couple who — for whatever reason — have not had the opportunity to tie the knot, get the chance to do so. Our producers provide everything from the venue to the catering — but there’s a catch: Our couple has to plan the wedding themselves and they only have one day to do so.
In terms of highlights for the past year, the local and global crossover appeal of our content is illustrated most recently by Chasing the Sun and Reyka. The former was the best-performing documentary on M-Net last year, drawing over 1.2 million viewers across DStv linear and the DStv app and was acquired by Sky Sports for broadcast in other territories. The latter is set to be available in 80 territories, with broadcasters and streamers including CBC (Canada), SBS (Australia), TVNZ (New Zealand), Sky Italia, Britbox (North America), Channel 4 (UK), HBO (Latin America) and Canal+ (Poland and France).
“The success of our own formats is testament to the power of our hyper-local strategy,” says Phahle. “It’s a winning formula that we’ll continue to focus on as we produce thousands of hours of local content every year for our viewers to immerse themselves in.”
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