Numerous South African shows floundered in the ratings in 2015 but none of them bombed as spectacularly as Mzansi Magic's telenovela The Road.
Isidingo battled to keep viewers when it came up against Rhythm City in the 19h00 timeslot and Coke Studio on e.tv had no fizz, averaging 296,000 viewers for its premiere and ending with a flat 235,000 viewers.
SABC2's The Bantu Hour and Visionaries' Lounge also failed to deliver on a channel which should have delivered much better numbers considering SABC2's reach.
The Bantu Hour premiered with 471,000 viewers in November and ended the year with the same unexciting numbers. Visionaries' Lounge also remained consistent in its underachievement, premiering with a meagre 202,000 viewers and ending the year with 235,000.
These shows suffered from consistently malnourished numbers but none of them crashed and burned in the same way The Road did. The Road premiered with 538,000 viewers on its first night, it averaged 437,000 viewers in its first week and by the end of the second week it slumped to an average of 296,000.
By the end of the year its weekly average plunged to a whopping low of 84,000 viewers so it's no surprise that Mzansi Magic has put it out of its suffering by cancelling it. The channel has confirmed that it will end five months earlier than scheduled. Because it's a telenovela, it was only supposed to end in August after 208 episodes but it's ending in March instead.
It's a pity because the show has been very ambitious and it's always good for ambition and initiative to be rewarded. Unfortunately its ambition was an integral part of its downfall because the past-and-present scenario hasn't worked for it. It's also been on a back foot from the start because it was ridiculous to kill off the main character Zwelakhe in the second week.
The period scenes look good and are well executed but the double time frame hasn't worked with the soapie format. It resulted in viewer confusion which was agitated by the huge number of characters people had to get to know. It would have been much better with
less.
Fewer characters, fewer time shifts and fewer episodes. It should have been a drama instead of soapie. TVSA members have also suggested that it would have been better served if it had only been set in the past. It tried to do too much and failed.
Which is much better than not putting any passion into it. A sentiment that the show's production company Bomb clearly subscribes to. When The Road first premiered in August last year, TVSA asked Executive Producer Desiree Maarkraaff about the name of the production company. Why Bomb?
She told us that they came up with the name to describe their vision for the company: they want their shows to be The Bomb and if they're not, they want them to Bomb completely because they don't want anything in between. They want them to be explosive either way and The Road has definitely delivered on this because its explosion has been LOUD.
It's also been beneficial to the TV industry overall because it reveals that viewers can have a fundamental impact on what we see. Too many shows with lacklustre ratings have been renewed in the past and this will hopefully set a new future trend.