The Chat Room is a South African television talk show directed and produced by Gabaza Productions that debates everyday ethical and moral issues that face people from all walks of life.
The series premiered on SABC1 in 2000. Episodes are 30 minutes in length.
The first four seasons were hosted by Sarah Ngubeni. Mbali Ntuli took over as host of the 5th season, but left the show after the 7th season citing dissatisfaction with "certain things". Ngubeni returned as host of the show for the start of the 8th season.
Season 9 premiered on SABC1 on Sunday 6 December 2009, at 12h00. New episodes air weekly. There are 26 episodes in the ninth season.
Synopsis
The Chat Room is a morality, values and ethics talk show that poses a weekly dilemma for viewer consideration. Each week two teams of two debate a particular issue from the perspective of one in favour of the argument and one against.
They debate for a live studio audience that consists of experts on the topics, regular people and celebrities who give their opinions on the issues too.
A live SMS feed runs through the show featuring viewers' opinions, and viewers phone in their experiences to a Hotline which both the studio audience and debating panel respond to.