Open Time flashback with Scot Scott

Before autocue, before 24-hour broadcasting, and long before streaming took over, there was Scot Scott – one of the original faces of South African television. From the early, chaotic days of M-Net in the late '80s, to his final onscreen moments with kykNET, Scot’s career was a masterclass in live TV survival, quick thinking, and charm.

Now living a very different kind of life on a busy farm, Scot took time out in honour of DStv’s 30th anniversary Open Time weekend. Read on as he reflects on the tape-fetching scrambles, the thrill of live broadcasts, and why he traded the studio lights for sunshine and soil. 

Read more about DStv Open Time, what to watch, and how to tune in on 7-9 November.

What was it like to work at M-Net at the very beginning?  

The first year of M-Net was quite rough! They started with some transmissions towards the end of 1986 but I started at the beginning of 1987. When I started there, I think there were about 47 people working there – from Koos Bekker to the people cleaning the building. In those days, as presenters, we had to go and research for our programmes, write our own scripts, dress ourselves – and remember there was nothing like autocue in studio, so whatever you needed to say, you had to prepare yourself and have it in your head or just ad lib.

When M-Net just started we would broadcast from 5pm until about 11 at night, or if the movie was long, until midnight. But in the school holidays, we would broadcast in the mornings. I remember one day, we did the countdown to air and someone realised they had to run to the other side of the building to get the tape! Luckily, because we wrote our own scripts, I had quite a bit of knowledge on that morning’s programme, so I could talk for about three minutes without repeating myself while the controller ran to get the tape. Then we went on air and no one even realised there was something wrong!  

It was quite challenging in the early years, but it was exciting and we made it work. We weren’t allowed to blank on air – if you had more than three seconds of blank air, you could easily lose your job. 

You were such a familiar face on our screens, then seemed to disappear. What happened? 

I left Johannesburg in 2004 and soon after that my phone started ringing with different companies offering me auditions and presenting work. They called me just as I started working on my farm, so I came back to Joburg for maybe a week or two at a time to work, then went back to the farm. My farm is so busy that there’s never a time that you’re off, and you have to be there otherwise you’ll have problems.  

The last TV work I did was around 2012 or 2013 with kykNET.  

Yes, you hosted Fortuinsoekers on kykNET in 2012. How was that? 

I came up in 2012 for just two weeks. It was shot all over the country, from Cape Town to Kimberley to other places, and we finished 13 episodes in two weeks. We did the same again in 2014. There was no time to think, “should I or shouldn’t I?” – we had to move, and we had to work. But I was used to that!  

What did you learn during your M-Net and DStv days?  

One thing I learned doing live television or broadcasting – like a Miss South Africa or a Fortuinsoekers, or even continuity – is that you must always be prepared for something to go wrong, and when it does go wrong, you mustn’t make a mistake. And even when you do then make a mistake, people watching shouldn’t realise it’s happened. In live television, you need to be very quick on your feet.