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Cape Town – The cash-strapped SABC has added Survivor back to the SABC3 schedule, with the 32nd season, Survivor Kaôh Rong, that has been pencilled in for a starting date of Monday, 13 May at 19:30.
It must be noted that South African viewers should treat it as a "tentative" starting date since SABC3 has abruptly dropped the promised start of the last couple of Survivor seasons. Season premieres got pushed out with SABC3 that then also botched the season premiere episodes. That remains a possibility with Survivor Kaôh Rong.
However, for now, SABC3 has Survivor back in its schedule and once again scheduled a season of the American Survivor to start just days before the next season of Survivor South Africa on M-Net (DStv 101).
This time the 7th season entitled Survivor SA: Island of Secrets set in Samoa that will kick off on Thursday 16 May at 19:00 following the conclusion of The Bachelor SA.
This is the second time that SABC3 has done - the previous season, Survivor: Cambodia that it originally scheduled to start at the same time as Survivor SA: Philippines in mid-May 2018 but then abruptly postponed because of non-payment and non-delivery of tapes, that only saw it start in mid-August 2018.
READ MORE: SABC3 sets return date for Survivor – at the same time as M-Net’s Survivor SA
Survivor Kaôh Rong that was broadcast in 2016 in the United States, will see contestants get divided into three tribes according to "brains" (intelligence), "brawn" (physical power) and "beauty" (external attractiveness).
Filmed in Cambodia as well – similar to the previous season – this season will introduce the power to remove a member of the jury for the first time.
WATCH THE TRAILER HERE:
MONEY WOES
Because of the SABC and SABC3 financial problems, American TV shows like The Bold and the Beautiful, Survivor and to a lesser extent The Amazing Race have vanished from the programming schedule of the South African public broadcaster's only commercial TV channel.
In February 2018 SABC3 made the hollow promise and said that it will catch up and start to show seasons of Survivor on Mondays and The Amazing Race on Wednesdays sooner with smaller breaks between seasons to stop falling further and further behind America.
Instead, Survivor has been absent from SABC3 for months.
Earlier this month, Madoda Mxakwe, SABC CEO, told South Africa’s parliament that the situation at the out-of-cash broadcaster "is so bad that several major content providers of key programmes actually refuse to engage with us. Understandably, because we have not been able to pay them in the past couple of months.
