kykNET to heat up SA's morning show wars

Cape Town – South Africa's morning TV wars are hotting up with kykNET deciding to add to its line-up and start producing the country's first Afrikaans-only weekday breakfast show entitled Dagbreek to battle the existing Morning Live, Sunrise and Expresso.

Where Morning Live on SABC2 and Sunrise on e.tv cater to an English speaking audience only and Expresso has a smattering of Afrikaans, Dagbreek – starting on 5 November on kykNET between 06:00 and 08:00 – will go after the lucrative Afrikaans market and their discretionary spending.

The channel's weekend morning show Ontbytsake will remain.

Dagbreek's on-air motif in a teaser trailer makes use of the Trivial Pursuit idea of a pie with differently segmented triangular interest. Dagbreek (Daybreak) will feature the usual morning show TV cereal – news, sport, weather and traffic updates, talk show, cooking and entertainment segments, as well as agriculture.

The show is reportedly going to be produced from Stark Studios in Johannesburg and presenters include soap star Harald Richter from the kykNET soap Villa Rosa, Rozanne Mckenzie from the weekly primetime magazine entertainment show Kwêla, comedian Pierre Breytenbach from Proesstraat and the presenter Dalen Lance.

The morning TV wars in South Africa has heated up considerably since the erstwhile start of Good Morning South Africa on the SABC's then-TV1 channel and the since then come-and-gone cancelled attempts of The Toasty Show (e.tv), Morning Edition (e.tv) and AM2Day (SABC2).

Just this year saw a new studio for Morning Live, new graphics for Sunrise, Graeme Richards who used to be on Sunrise jumping to Expresso as a presenter as well as a set overhaul for SABC3 morning show.