The SABC has effectively cancelled Muvhango on SABC2 – the channel’s most-watched show – after 27 years, after the Venda soap ran out of produced episodes last night and leaves the channel with a gap in the 21:00 timeslot.
According to insiders, Muvhango, created by Duma Ndlovu and produced by Word of Mouth Pictures has completely shut down, with no new or contract extension for further episodes in place. I’ve learnt from the production compant that 15 June was the final day of work for the cast and crew.
The SABC and SABC2 gave viewers no warning that Tuesday night’s Muvhango episode – episode 130 of the 25th season – would be the last.
Viewers saw Kgosi and Reneilwe’s wedding that ended the episode on a cliffhanger – very similar to Dynasty’s “Moldavian Massacre” fifth season finale – where a sniper shot on the wedding guests with both Kgosi and Reneilwe falling down, while shocked wedding guests tried to call an ambulance and viewers were left wondering who is dead.
The SABC is now going to pad the Muvhango timeslot with old rebroadcasts from tonight at 21:00, starting from the first episode of the first season.
The long-running show was the South African public broadcaster’s first Tshivenda language drama, which started in April 1997 with one episode per week, after which Muvhango over time expanded to become a 5-day per week soap.
Just before its cancellation notification, Danie Odendaal Productions which made 7de Laan for SABC2, also stopped production, withheld episode delivery and forced the SABC to pay outstanding debts in the millions of rand before further episodes were given to SABC2.
It happened again after 7de Laan was cancelled when the producers demanded payment from the SABC before the last remaining episodes were filmed and delivered in the latter part of 2023.
Something similar has now happened with Muvhango.
Thanduxolo Jindela, a spokesperson for Word of Mouth Pictures, told TVwithThinus “the latest final episode aired last night. There are ongoing conversations with SABC. No contract has been signed yet. We are not shooting”.
The production referred all other questions to the SABC and said the broadcaster should answer “content-related matters”.
The SABC has now put close to 200 people who were part of South Africa’s TV and film industry out of work.
Thanduxolo Jindela was asked repeatedly but didn’t want to say how many people Word of Mouth Pictures employed for Muvhango, or how many episodes of the soap were produced in total. Muvhango’s end credit list of Tuesday’s final episode has 175 people working on the show, besides SABC people.
According to an insider connected to Muvhango “Duma Ndlovu has so many productions with M-Net’s Mzansi Magic that he couldn’t give a rat’s ass about Muvhango. With the new government he no longer has the right political connections so they’re not renewing because the SABC has no money anyway”.
‘In terms of the cast and crew – the favourites will be used in Mzansi Magic shows I would imagine. However, some of them have only ever worked on Muvhango so it will be tough for them”.
The SABC was asked in media queries about Muvhango early on Wednesday and spokesperson Mmoni Seapolelo was also phoned and asked about the show’s apparent cancellation.
The SABC failed to respond with answers to the questions asked about why the broadcaster ended Muvhango’s contract which cancelled the long-running show.
What makes this Muvhango production shutdown different from any of the others before is that despite the SABC’s non-payment in some cases and the production company’s non-payment to cast and crew, there had always been a contract in place in all of those instances between the broadcaster and Word of Mouth Pictures for further episodes.
This time, the entire last contract with Word of Mouth Pictures ran out with the SABC commissioning editors who did nothing in the final few months of 2024 before yesterday’s final episode aired to set up and sign a new contract for another Muvhango season.
There is nothing further for Word of Mouth Pictures to still produce or deliver to the SABC in terms of Muvhango episodes, with cast and crew who are effectively free to jump to new projects and effectively making them unavailable if there were to be new, future Muvhango episodes ordered.
Muvhango, currently in the 21:00 timeslot on SABC2 and the channel’s only show pulling above a million viewers on weeknights, made household names of actors like Gabriel Temudzani, Dingaan Khumalo, Lindiwe Chibi, Khabonina Qubeka and others.
The apparent cancellation of Muvhango after almost three decades comes after the SABC’s acing of its only Afrikaans soap 7de Laan which ended in December 2023 after 24 years, and the cancellation of The Estate on SABC3 after three seasons in May 2023 with the SABC that at the time only said production was “on hold”.
After 7de Laan’s cancellation ordersin July 2023, SABC insiders told TVwithThinus that Muvhango on SABC2 and Generations – The Legacy on SABC1 were the next two big-budget scripted shows on the chopping block since there simply are no money to keep them going.
The public broadcaster is technically insolvent and can simply can no longer afford large ensemble cast shows, with the SABC now incapable of sustaining these type of multi-cam productions that are created to run for multiple years.
While Muvhango saw massive SABC audience erosion and has shed several millions of viewers since the show’s heyday on SABC2 as it battled multiple timeslot changes across the SABC2 programming schedule over years, it remained the most-wached show on the channel with 1.29 million viewers in May with a 13.4% share.
Muvhango’s shutdown comes after recent years of continuous non-payments and late payments of the cast and crew, with staff who decided several times over the last few years not to show up for work demanding payments, as well as work-stoppage from the production side due to lacks of funds.
Following 7de Laan’s axing and nothing which came of a promise to replace it with a new drama series following a pitch that was put out to the production industry at large, Muvhango has been SABC2’s last scripted original drama series in production with new episodes.
After Muvhango’s exit last night, SABC2 has no original soap left that runs on the channel with new nightly episodes.