Janet Smith
If only the houses in which the Molois and the Dwyers lived in SABC2’s Suburban Bliss were on the property market, and someone with a lot of money came along and offered the families a bountiful pair of cheques. Perhaps then, with those irritating people and their tacky studio furniture out of the way, the ratings could get moving again — with SABC2’s biggest hit to date, Suburban Bliss, no longer hogging the top spot.
It’s a trashing of good taste and national manners that this sitcom, which took the country by surprise a couple of years ago, was South Africa’s favourite TV show of the year again, beating SABC1’s The Bold and the Beautiful by a false eyelash.
So loyal were the fans of these two shows that there were few contenders for the popularity prize, although national dramas like The Missing Link, Generations, Muvhango, Tholwana Tsa Sethepu and Soul City get the rah-rah treatment for trying, but not necessarily for high standards.
The list of the most consistent top-10 TV shows of the year is not difficult to compile. Suburban Bliss wins first place again, followed by The Bold. Then — in random order — come Generations, Soul City, South Africa’s best-loved American comedy Living Single, studio party Jam Alley, the music show Ezodumo, the music quiz Noot vir Noot and the dramas The Missing Link and Muvhango (which made history as the first Venda serial on air).
South African material is still relished above all imports, with the exception of Living Single, which has performed exceptionally well, and The Bold. SABC2’s American series, like The Nanny and Pacific Blue, play for position on that channel’s top 10, but South African-made shows score every time.
Dramas that played to favourable audiences include SABC1’s Molo Fish and SABC3’s Deafening Silence, and Barry Ronge’s movie magazine Screenplay has reeled in good figures throughout the year on SABC3. SABC1 also celebrated with an award for an episode of Mail & Guardian Television’s exceptional documentary series Ghetto Diaries, which scored good ratings when it was aired.
Sport was huge in the charts again this year, especially soccer and boxing, and the Miss World and Miss South Africa pageants — aired for the first time on the SABC after M-Net cut loose its broadcast rights — pulled the sash over millions of people, wiggling the hips to number one in the weeks both were screened on SABC1.
Perhaps the biggest news of the year in the ratings was the awesome flight to the top of the ratings of M-Net’s Egoli when SABC1 made the astonishing decision to screen cricket through soap-opera time, sending its viewers scurrying for a decoder. The next biggest news was the disappearance from M-Net’s own top 10 of Egoli just a few months later. Franz Marx’s soap is now seldomly seen on the charts, which means there are fewer than 380 000 adults watching it on an average night.
SABC3 didn’t wait around for M-Net to redecorate in August. Quicker off the mark, SABC3 served up a new line-up in June, and its ratings continue to climb as its footprint grows around the country. Top imports on that channel were Mad about You, Touched by an Angel and Dr Quinn, Medicine Woman.