After dismal day and timeslot moves for its once hot Zaziwa show that drove millions of viewers away from the SABC1, the SABC is finally backtracking and will be restoring Zaziwa to where it originally worked - on a weekday at 19:30.
Zaziwa will 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," says Sane Zondi, SABC1 programming manager.
"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 programming 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 Zaziwa was safe.
Then in February 2017 the SABC ripped Zaziwa from the schedule and inexplicably 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 channel head Clara Nzima quietly decided to dump Zaziwa from the schedule entirely to make space for yet another old rerun of Shaka Zulu, and to bring Zaziwa back in a few months' time.
Nobody told a flabbergasted Pearl Modiadie that her show is off the schedule and off the air, with the Zaziwa presenter who had to hear from the media and not the SABC that Zaziwa has abruptly been shelved from its struggling Sunday evening timeslot.
Now Zaziwa is coming back to SABC1 and its erstwhile 19:30 timeslot, just on a weekday that's a day earlier than what it always used to be.
