The first Royalty Soapie Awards ceremony has been postponed until 2014. The news comes within days of the announcement of the
nominees in the creative categories.
The ceremony was scheduled for Saturday, 2 November and has been moved to early next year instead.
According to director of the awards Sindile Xulu, this is the reason: “To give maximum value to all our partners and sponsors we felt it was important that as a new project, the event must have the desired impact."
In a bizarre statement Xulu goes on to say: “The first quarter of the year is an ideal time and fairly uncluttered from an entertainment point of view ..."
Which makes no sense because the first quarter's always crammed with entertainment, most notably award ceremonies. The Oscars, The SAFTAs, The Golden Globes - even the Metro Awards have moved to the first quarter to capitalise on the buzz of the season. Being part of this buzz would have been a much better reason to move the Royalty's.
Despite the change in date, the announcement of the nominees in the performance categories will still go ahead this year. The nominees will be announced on Wednesday, 23 October and viewer voting lines for the Most Popular Soapie category will open on 2 November.