Seven million fans of South Africa's most popular television soap opera will be cut off from their daily dose of drama this week after the entire cast was sacked for demanding better pay.
The last available episode of "Generations" -- which has been running for 20 years -- will be screened tonight, the South African Broadcasting Corporation announced.
It will be at least two months before a "revamped" version of the show is broadcast -- with a completely new group of 16 actors, the production house said.
The cast walked off the set in August to demand better pay and royalties. Weeks later they were fired, and the SABC has now run out of episodes.
"We don't have enough episodes of 'Generations', so we will only go until today," SABC spokesman Kaizer Kganyago told AFP.
"We are hoping that 'Generations' will have episodes ready for the first week of December," Kganyago said.
Set in Johannesburg, "Generations" is a family drama with the advertising industry as a backdrop. Its cast is predominantly black, but it regularly features white and Indian characters.
It has been South Africa's most viewed and longest running soap, having launched in 1994, the year Nelson Mandela became president after the end of apartheid.
