A South African Gay Wedding Show Broke Viewership Records

Image via Showmax

Congratulations! Not only are they married, but they’re breaking records.

At the start of February, we shared with you the wedding of Somizi Mhlongo and Mohale Motaung. Somizi is a reality show personality in South Africa. He has not only appeared as a judge on Idols SA, but he also had four seasons of his own show called Living The Dream with Somizi. But it’s his latest reality program, Somizi & Mohale: The Union, that has earned him a hefty income.

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Somizi got married to Mohale back in September. The wedding, which merged Zulu and Sotho cultures, was a star-studded event that included multiple South African celebrities. But that’s not all. That was only the first of two events. The second event was held at the end of January. That second wedding in Muldersdrift also led to the Twitter hashtag #somhalewhitewedding.

Then, of course, both ceremonies, as well as the time before and between them, were recorded for television. Now, it appears that Somizi & Mohale: The Union is a major success. According to Mambaonline, the first episode of the series launched this Monday on African TV station Showmax and the program broke Showmax’s first-day viewing record. The first episode of the four-part special beat all other local or international shows streamed on the platform.

“This demonstrates just how important local content is to succeeding in streaming video in South Africa, and why it’s so significant that more than half of Showmax’s catalogue is now made up of local shows,” said MultiChoice in a statement.

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We expected Somhale to do well but the response was even bigger than we’d hoped, and it goes to show how our shift to local content is paying dividends. In fact, the views of local content are up more than 40% in less than a year,” added Niclas Ekdahl, CEO of the Connected Video division of MultiChoice.

The following three episodes of the special program will drop every Monday for the next three weeks. We hope the Somhale couple continues to see this level of success.

Sources: Mambaonline

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