Have your say and tvplus will help where we can!
Hi tvplus!
What is the hold up with SABC3 bringing us Survivor and The Amazing Race? They’re my favourite reality shows and it feels like years since the channel had them. No one else is airing them, so what’s the hold up? – Darren per email
I’d love to tell you what’s going on, but the truth is that we don’t know. SABC3 had both The Amazing Race and Survivor as their mostwatched series for years… and then COVID happened and it’s seemingly been impossible to get the tapes into the country. Yes we’re in a digital world, so why do they need those oldfashioned tapes still? Broadcasters – this goes for other free-to-air channels and subscription brands – receive digital copies of their shows as well as physical tape copies, which are then used as a form of back-up. The channel sends out a signal of the digital file with the tape running in synchronisation at their various stations – if something goes wrong with the digital broadcast, the channel switches over to the tape version and there’s a seamless swap that we at home don’t even know about.
When or if SABC3 will get them back and on air in their usual Monday-night slot is another question – we’ve mailed the scheduling team for almost three years for answers and we’ve not heard back. What you can do in the meantime if you want is find a couple of seasons of Survivor USA on streaming service Showmax (see more on p10) and they’ve also got a couple of seasons of Survivor South Africa. I must admit that as a traveller (preCOVID), I’ve always loved the premise of The Amazing Race and the psychology and gameplaying between contestants in both shows makes them incredibly addictive.