Popular soap operas Generations: The Legacy and Isidingo seem set to be taken off air, amid financial problems at the South African Broadcasting Corporation.
Generations: The Legacy is reportedly being cancelled after a fallout between the production company Morula Pictures and the SABC over a demand by the latter that episodes of the show be reduced from 24 minutes in length to 22. This would lead to cost saving on procurement and would allow around four additional advertisements to be flighted during an episode.
This would mean a loss of some 40 minutes of broadcast time for the producers, which would severely impact them as they were paid per minute.
A source within the SABC told the media that the SABC could not afford to lose the show, because it was popular with audiences and brought in a lot of revenue.
Generations: The Legacy has been on air since 2014, and built on Generations, a soap opera that aired between 1994 and 2014.
Isidingo, another soap opera that has been broadcast since 1998 (and was a sequel of sorts to The Villagers, a television series from the 1970s), would also be cancelled, as a result of poor ratings and declining audience numbers.
Both shows entertained their audiences and in some respects held a mirror up to their audiences. They portrayed the aspirations of people in post-apartheid South Africa, dealt with sometimes controversial themes and referenced topical current affairs.