On the 4th of March this year, Skeem Saam moved to a new time slot of 19:30 on SABC1. And with over 3 million viewers in just the first week, Skeem Saam continues to grab eyeballs to television screens. Season 13 starts on the 1^st July 2024, but before we jump in, here are some highlights from Season 12.

• Pitsi landed up in hospital compelling Thabo Maputla to make a swift return to Turfloop.
• Pretty’s prince quickly turned into a frog and after things took a dark turn Lehasa came to the rescue, guns blazing.
• Kwaito and Lizzy found their way back to each other and danced down the aisle to wedded bliss.
• Babeile and Sthoko found love in each other. Unfortunately, toxicity tore them apart.
• Ntswaki fell for a young man and he liked her too. But both their lives are now turned upside-down when the concept of ‘consent’ became distorted.
• Melita successfully bulldozed Eunice out of Mr Kgomo’s life.
• Luc was killed and Kganyago was finally brought to justice.

From the 17th of July 2024, theatre and television actor Samson Khumalo makes an appearance playing the character of ‘Boikanyo (Bra Boikie) Ramasemola’, a flamboyant 50 something year old who isn’t afraid to speak his mind. We meet Bra Boikie as a municipal employee who is willing to assist Kwaito and Tbose in getting a big paying tender. Corruption rears its ugly head when the brothers realise that they need to do something for Bra Boikie in return.

After having been on a production break for a short duration, Harriet Manamela will return from the 2^nd of August 2024 to play the character of ‘Meikie Maputla’. We honour Florence Masebe for standing in for Harriet and playing the character of ‘Meikie’ with such elegance and grace during her absence.

In addition, in Season 13 we see Paxton and Letetswe’s world collide with Tbose and Kwaito’s, when a science project goes terribly wrong. Lehasa Maphosa finds himself on trial for the deaths of traffickers Tsietsi and Pule. Melita’s true colours come to light, and we become aware of her dark past. We also reunite with a certain pilot but this time we land in the Mother City.

In true Skeem Saam style, expect the type of twists and turns keeping you glued to SABC1 every weeknight at 19.30 pm.

‘Angeke Baskone’ with Skeem Saam at 19:30 weekdays, only on SABC1 Mzansi FoSho!

For pictures, please click on the link below.

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Contact: –

Caroline Phalakatshela

Publicity Specialist: Video Entertainment – 072 382 3032 / phalakatshelamc@sabc.co.za

In the epic season finalé of The Masked Singer South Africa Season 2, the coolest Giraffe in the country towered above his fierce competitors to snatch the crazy mystery celebrity singing competition’s coveted Golden Mask trophy.

And the guessing game is over! The undercover Mzansi superstar who gave Giraffe his inimitable swag and wowed SABC audiences with his whacky, deep-voiced performance was SAMA-winning actor Warren Masemola.

To reach the top, Warren’s Giraffe trampled over runner-up Blue Crane in a final battle of note after she had crushed shining star Gold, and he silenced the “king of hoots”, Owl.

When the graceful Blue Crane with the beautiful voice was unmasked, former Miss South Africa and author Shudufhadzo Musido showed face. Owl’s impressive feathers belonged to multiple award-winning thespian Aubrey Poo, and Gold was mined from the fantastic talent of charismatic gospel singer and medical practitioner Sbu Noah.

But how did the show’s detective panel – J’Something,  Somizi Mhlongo, Sithelo Shozi and Skhumba Hlophe – fare in deciphering the identities of the show’s top four masked singers?

Gold, who was unmasked first during the finale, after his sterling “Where have you been” by Rihanna, was one of the detectives’ favourite masks throughout the season. When he once landed in the danger zone, they even saved him to continue his masked singer journey.

During the show, the detectives learnt from his clue packages that Gold and Whitney Houston were “sculptured the same way”. Showing off a golden soccer ball, he also revealed that he wanted to be a football player, and 1225 seats were once filled for one of his golden “spectacles”.

Based on these revelations, all four of the detectives guessed correctly by the time of his unmasking that Sbu Noah was creating magic on the show disguised as Gold. However, Somizi was the first to catch onto Gold’s true identity, straightening his detective colleagues’ crossed eyes.

When it was Owl’s turn to come clean after losing the smackdown with Giraffe performing “As Long As You’re Here” by The Backstreet Boys, the detectives disagreed. They all gauged from his clues that they were dealing with an actor, particularly one who had a connection with some kind of royalty. So, J’Something and Skhumba locked in Sello Maake KaNcube, while Sithelo and Somizi nailed it by settling on legendary actor Aubrey Poo.

Aubrey confessed that he deliberately tried to create confusion by walking like Sello.

In the early days of the competition, the detectives wondered if runner-up Blue Crane might be Charlize Theron. Still, from the get-go, Skhumba insisted that the gorgeous, feathered creature was current Miss South Africa, Natasha Joubert, while J’Something later gathered that Blue Crane was actress Bonnie Mbuli.

Those were also the names Skhumba and J’Something provided after Blue Crane’s final performance of the Black Coffee mix of Alicia Keys’ “In Common”. But Sithelo and Somizi caged Blue Crane’s identity by guessing that Shudu was behind the mask.

J’Something, in awe of Shudu’s incredible pipes, encouraged her to continue sharing her hidden singing talent with the world, to which the former Miss SA confessed that she loved performing while growing up. If there were a musical at school, Shudu would sing and dance.

Among Giraffe’s clues during the season, he once mentioned that Wednesdays were his favourite day of the week. Somizi gauged that it was the day of the week he spent with his son. Somizi was spot on. When Giraffe returned to the stage after taking a Kit Kat break from his big win, and before his unmasking, he had the Golden Mask trophy in one hand and a small giraffe soft toy in the other. Little did he know at the time that the final episode would be aired on the owner of the little Giraffe’s fourth birthday!

With their final Giraffe guesses, J’Something locked in TV presenter Katlego Maboe while the other three detectives closed the case, exposing Warren Masemola.

The detectives couldn’t stop praising how Warren immersed himself in the Giraffe character from day 1, delighting the audiences with his animated goofy performances.

J’Something raved: “Warren, I have so much respect for you. This game is, yes, about the singing, but it’s also about the acting and living the moment. You have really blown me away.”

Somizi added, “You deserve to win. You have brought so much light to the show,” and Sithelo commented, “You gave The Masked Singer a whole new meaning. What a ball of fun!”

Furthermore, Sithelo couldn’t stop laughing, noticing that even after dropping the Giraffe head, Warren continued acting like Giraffe.

Afterwards, Warren noted backstage that he loved every moment on the show and was chuffed that he could sing his favourite song, “Welcome to Jamrock” by Diaman Marley.

While Warren won the prestigious Golden Mask trophy, another trophy was up for grabs for the detective with the most correct first guesses this season. Sithelo and Somizi shared the Golden Ear trophy.

The Masked Singer South Africa was produced by Rose and Oaks Media for Primedia Studios and sponsored by Andolex.  If you missed the final, catch it on SABC 1 on Thursday at 21:00 or  S3 on Friday at 18:00. 

-ends

In an ongoing partnership between S3 and BBC, the channel announces the titles set to broadcast from the 6th of June 2024.

The shows form part of the new offering from a hand-picked selection of award-winning dramas, factual entertainment and documentaries.

S3 viewers can look forward to more intense drama in Critical, featuring award-winning actor and screenwriter Lennie James starring alongside Catherine Walker, Sheri Sadd, Peter Sullivan and Kimberley Nixon in this thirteen-part series set in a gleaming new Major Trauma Centre that only deals with the most serious cases. Critical will broadcast on Mondays to Wednesdays at 21:00 from the 11th of June 2024.

Lennie James is Glen Boyle, a trauma surgeon with a background in combat medicine called by Fiona Lomas, a middle-level emergency doctor, to a beautiful modern hospital to save its ultra high-tech but malfunctioning trauma unit.  Critical is an emotional roller-coaster ride as an emergency medical team battles through the vital first hour of care to save lives that hang in the balance. Glen and Fiona are challenged across the series to weld a disparate bunch of personalities into a crack life-saving team against the opposition of senior doctor Clive Archerfield. Their task is hugely complicated. Glen and Fiona are on the verge of marriage to a senior obstetrician in the hospital and have a dark and secret romantic past.

On Thursdays at 21:00, the channel continues with its BBC Prime documentaries, Men For Sale: Life Of A Male Escort on the 6th, following an exposé on the unseen world of male escorts, where wealthy single women pay younger men for companionship and sexual relations. Meet the young men vying for the attention of well-off women online. It is a competitive arena where women promise to lavish their male escorts with expensive gifts and lots of money in return for intercourse, dates and devotion. Some of the men seem to be in control of the power dynamic. Others are just desperate to pay their bills. How binding are the contracts these young men sign; what happens if an escort cheats on his ‘sugar mummy,’ is there any room for romance?

This World: Frat Boys on Thursday the 13th looks into America’s college fraternities that are notorious for hard drinking and hard partying but also being accused of fostering a culture of brutality and sexual assault. During one term at the University of Central Florida, the programme follows the life of a group of frat boys as they embark on the pledging process when recruits have to prove themselves before they can become fraternity brothers. Most are joining because fraternities provide access to an influential network of alumnus throughout the US. But each year, students die or get injured in barbaric initiation rituals, known as hazing, and some argue that the fraternity system allows sexual assaults to occur during drunken campus parties.

On the 20th of June, the documentary The Abercrombie Guys: The Dark Side Of Cool investigates allegations of exploitation and abuse at the top of one of America’s big fashion brands. Former CEO Mike Jeffries transformed Abercrombie and Fitch from a failing retail chain to a multi-billion-dollar empire and the epitome of cool. Now, after months of painstaking investigation, Panorama speaks to men on being recruited into a dark world, created to satisfy the sexual fantasies of Jeffries and his British partner Matthew Smith. Silenced for years by the fear of breaking non-disclosure agreements, these men describe feeling exploited and traumatised by their experiences. One high-profile American lawyer has called for prosecutors to investigate.

Nigeria’s Female Suicide Bombers explores one of the world’s deadliest terrorist groups, Boko Haram. Its shocking tactics include the mass kidnapping of schoolgirls and the use of female suicide bombers. In North East Nigeria, Stacey Dooley meets a woman kidnapped by Boko Haram at the age of 13 and forced to marry three times before being sent on a bombing mission. Astonishingly, she escaped to tell her painful story. Another believed in Boko Haram’s ideology and volunteered for a suicide-bombing mission. Fate intervened, and she survived. Now separated from Boko Haram, she is trying to re-integrate into a society of people she was once willing to kill.

The second block of  BBC Primetime every Thursday at 22:00 will close off with award-winning filmmaker Louis Theroux’s series of investigative features.

In Louis Theroux: Selling Sex on the 6th of June, Louis Theroux interviews women legally providing sexual services in exchange for money. Louis looks at how they use technology to share photos, make bookings and vet potential clients – making the exchange more accessible and, some argue, safer than the illegal alternatives. Many still believe selling sex is exploitative and damaging. Others feel it can be a valid, empowering choice. In this film, Louis explores whether selling sexual act can ever be a healthy way to make money.

Louis Theroux: Life On The Edge takes viewers through 25 years of documentary-making with this candid and fascinating retrospective. The documentary will revisit the best and strangest moments in Louis Theroux’s celebrated TV career. Utilising his own home movie footage and news archives, Louis also tracks past contributors to find out whether their lives have settled down – or spiralled off in even more surprising directions. And for the very first time, Louis puts himself in the spotlight. With his trademark wit, the famous filmmaker discusses the unique challenges of documentary making and the invaluable lessons he’s learned about human psychology.

S3 viewers will embark on a trip of a lifetime, as the BBC’s acclaimed Natural History Unit takes us on a spectacular polar expedition into a breathtaking landscape most humans will never experience in Frozen Planet on Sundays at 18:30 from the 9^th of June 2024. Ambitious and epic in scale, this landmark series is the ultimate portrait of the great wildernesses of the Arctic and Antarctic before they change forever. Narrated by world renowned naturalist Sir David Attenborough, Frozen Planet has taken new technology to the most extreme and remote parts of our planet, capturing groundbreaking imagery as camera teams go deep under the ice into a magical world of giants, plunge into the heart of an erupting polar volcano and fly to the South Pole across the Antarctic ice cap. Get closer than ever before to the lives of charismatic animal characters and witness extraordinary examples of survival against the odds.

Channel your inner detective with the new BBC Primetime content block on S3 weekdays.

SABC Education and SABC2 welcome the return of a revamped agricultural programme, Living Land, returning for the thirteenth season. Living Land will be broadcast every Sunday at 11 am, starting on the 2nd of June 2024.

Kamogelo Bombe returns as the host of this educational programme that features all things agricultural in South Africa, with a distinct focus on smallholders, emerging farmers, and rural development throughout the country.

Judging by the viewer response on social media, emails and letters, production house No-Line Communications and SABC Education are encouraged by the rising interest shown by younger viewers. The fresh approach taken with the previous series, along with the new, upbeat look and feel of the show, seems to be paying dividends.

The new season will shed light on the exciting new applicable technological advances in agriculture and specifically feature exciting opportunities for young viewers who are not only in farming but also in associated activities like agro-processing, marketing, engineering, and research.

Viewers can expect topics that cover the new hemp and cannabis industry, track-and-trace technology for the fishing sector and booming new enterprises like rabbit farming.

The series also takes a long, hard look at land reform from a practical standpoint and gets the views and experiences of the people that matter – the farmers.

“Loyal followers and new viewers of Living Land can look forward to a brand-new programme structure and technical aspects that have been carefully refined to produce an enjoyable and exciting new series, rich in relevant information and educational content. There is an old saying that farmers are magicians who can turn mud into money, where Living Land sets about explaining the actual methods, they employ to perform this ‘magic’, to educate, inspire and uplift,”- Executive Producer Nozipho Ndiweni.

SABC Education plays a leading role in informing and uplifting existing and aspiring farmers, especially in our country’s rural areas. Independent research proves that the active development of a country’s agricultural sector has a much greater potential to create jobs and boost the economy than any other sector.

Viewers are encouraged to correspond on various platforms including email (livingland@sabc.co.za), the website (www.livingland.co.za), Facebook(facebook.com/Official.LivingLand), X (@LivingLandSABC) and Instagram(@Livinglandsabc).

For more information, interview opportunities and publicity photos, contact the SABC2 Publicity office.

Si La with the new season of Living Land every Sunday at 11 am, starting 2 June 2024 only on SABC2.