Cape Town – After several day and timeslot moves for Zaziwa, the SABC is finally restoring the show to where it originally worked – on a weekday at 19:30.
Zaziwa will make its return to the SABC1 programming line-up from 15 November at 19:30 – the same timeslot but on Wednesdays, not Thursdays like before.
"We have made a conscious effort to move Zaziwa to Wednesday, as the environment that we have built on Sunday – and has already shown returns, intentionally did not make room for other formats other than local drama," Sane Zondi, SABC1 programming manager told Channel24.
"We believe Zaziwa will be a complimentary offer on the existing entertainment line-up on Wednesdays."
The return to a semblance of normality for Zaziwa comes exactly a year after the SABC decided to mess with the hugely popular show that used to pull between 3.5 and 4 million viewers to the public broadcaster before millions abandoned the show following inexplicable timeslot and day changes that saw the audience erode.
SABC1 executives decided to uproot Zaziwa and to move it to Thursdays at 21:00, but in October 2016 backtracked at the very last minute.
For a short while, it seemed as if the show was safe where it used to be.
Then in February 2017 the SABC pulled Zaziwa from the schedule and transplanted it to Sunday nights at 20:30 – a lifestyle television "death slot" where, as predicted, viewers abandoned the show by the millions.
In August 2017 there was even more shame for the show when SABC1 quietly decided to remove the show from the schedule entirely to make space for a rerun of Shaka Zulu.