Thinus Ferreira

e.tv is dropping Days of Our Lives from 11 April with the red letter broadcaster which is shaking up its primetime schedule with timeslot changes and adding a new local telenovela, The Black Door about a township brothel.

e.tv has not decided not to renew the contract for the American soap Days of Our Lives on its schedule, using the money to invest in making more local content for the channel as well as its eVOD video streaming service.

Days of Our Lives will end on 11 April on e.tv, a few years after e.tv took over the soap from SABC3 that decided to cancel it as well, with e.tv’s decision that will likely not go down very well with loyal viewers who switched to e.tv from SABC3 to follow the daily dramas of the American townsfolk of Salem.

“By adding new things to e.tv’s schedule and trying to create new content some of the things have to go since there are only so many hours in a day. Days of Our Lives is discontinued from 11 April,” says Marlon Davids, managing director of e.tv channels.

From 11 April e.tv will be showing the Clive Morris Productions series Isono that was on Paramount Africa’s BET (DStv 129), with e.tv that has acquired the free-to-air rights for its 20:30 timeslot after the channel’s English TV news bulletin.

Imbewu which will start its 5th season is moving to21:00 from 11 April, with the new risque local series The Black Door that will be shown Mondays to Fridays in the 21:30 timeslot.

About the schedule change and dropping Days, Marlon Davids says “it’s something that’s needed for us to structure the schedule to create flow to navigate audience in early primetime and to keep them on e.tv”.

e.tv is also dropping the American procedural dramas like the Chicago and NCIS series.

On Sunday nights the 20:00 movie timeslot is moving to 21:00, with the 20:00-timeslot that is going to be filled by local drama series.

The Rewind channel on eMedia’s Openview platform is rebranded to Xposed and will add Viceland documentaries and current affairs programming.

The cast of The Black Door which has been commissioned for 260 episodes includes among others Linda Sebezo, Zamani Mbatha, Velaphi Mnisi, Sello Ramalahloane and Gabisile Tshabalala and revolves around township characters – both innocent and jaded – whose lives are intertwined with a secretive brothel run by a ruthless owner where neither clients nor ordinary folk dare cross her.