By Cartier Tsholo, entertainment and TV critic
There was a time when watching television meant exactly that: sitting in front of a television set at a particular time, on a particular day, because if you missed the programme, you missed the moment.
Today, our relationship with entertainment looks very different. We stream. We scroll. We catch up. We watch clips on our phones and discuss television shows on social media before some people have even watched the full episode. All you have to do is open TikTok and see the moment everyone is talking about.
We have seen it with Come Dine With Me SA, where one disastrous dinner party can escape the television screen and become a trending sound, even years later. Take the contestant who served an entirely pink meal, a moment viewers still remember and share because it was so unexpected and perfectly suited to the internet.
We saw it again when Mr Moloto appeared on Skeem Saam earlier this year. Almost immediately, clips from the episode were everywhere and his now-familiar “wakey wakey” persona became part of the joke online.
And to be honest? I love watching that happen because, as an entertainment commentator, the conversations around a show can be just as entertaining as the show itself (sometimes even more).
What I have noticed is that South African audiences don’t just watch television; we participate. We choose sides, defend our favourites, question decisions and carry the best moments into completely different spaces. The television might be switched off, but the conversation is far from over.
That is what makes a programme like Strictly Come Dancing UK (BBC BRIT, DStv Ch.120) so fascinating to me. After more than two decades, it still understands one of the simplest ingredients of great television: give people something to talk about.
That is also what I enjoy about BBC BRIT’s line-up more broadly. Whether it’s a dance competition, a mystery or a game show, the strongest programmes tend to be the ones that invite audiences into the conversation.
Of course, there is the dancing, the costumes and the spectacle, but that isn’t the only reason people come back. We come back for the contestant who surprises everyone, the partnership we unexpectedly become invested in, the judge’s score we completely disagree with and the performance everyone wants to replay the next morning. You don’t even need to know your cha-cha from your Charleston to have an opinion.
Season 24 also gives South African audiences another reason to join that conversation. Johannes Radebe’s journey has been incredible to watch from home. We watched a South African dancer become one of Strictly’s personalities, and now we get to see him take another major step as one of the programme’s hosts alongside Emma Willis and Josh Widdicombe.
And Johannes isn’t our only connection to the new season. Motsi Mabuse returns to the judging panel, while South African dancer Lethabo Monametsi joins the professional line-up, giving us another homegrown talent to follow on the Strictly stage.
There is something about seeing a South African on an international show that changes how we watch. We claim our people proudly. Their journey feels closer to home, and we celebrate their wins and sometimes defend them online with the passion usually reserved for someone we actually know.
For me, that emotional investment is something television still does incredibly well.
Streaming has given us the freedom to watch almost anything whenever we want, and I love that convenience. But there is something different about knowing thousands of other people are experiencing that same television moment with you. You want to see what happens because you know that by tomorrow morning, the group chats and FYPs will already be discussing it.
The television screen is where the moment begins, but TikTok, Instagram, X and WhatsApp are where we give it another life. We search contestants while they’re still on screen, send voice notes about what just happened, save the meme, share the clip and join the debate.
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Sometimes you see a television moment so many times online that you eventually go looking for the original episode because you’re tired of being the only person who doesn’t understand the joke.
As an entertainment commentator, I think the more interesting story is not how many people watched, but what happened next.
How many WhatsApp conversations did an episode start? Which facial expression became a reaction meme? How many people searched for a contestant after seeing a clip? How many eventually watched because they were tired of being the only person who didn’t know what everybody was talking about?
That is cultural impact too.
For all the technology changing entertainment, I don’t think we have changed that dramatically as audiences. We still love characters and competition. We pick favourites and root for the underdog. And after a brilliant, shocking or completely chaotic television moment, we still want to ask somebody: “Did you see that?”
The difference is that the person we’re asking might now be on the other side of the country in a WhatsApp group rather than next to us on the couch.
So, when Strictly Come Dancing UK returns for Season 24 on BBC BRIT (DStv Channel 120) on Sunday 27 September at 7pm, I will be watching Johannes step into this new chapter, seeing how Lethabo makes her mark and waiting to discover which contestants we all become invested in.
But I’m also waiting for that moment: the performance we replay, the score we argue about, the contestant nobody expected to love or the reaction that becomes a meme.
Because after all these years, television’s biggest cultural power isn’t simply getting us to watch.
It’s giving us something we can’t stop talking about.
And if history tells us anything, Strictly will give us plenty to talk about this season.
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