Chris Brown’s final season as the co-host of “I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here” will go to air on Network 10 on Sunday, April 2.
Brown has co-hosted the reality competition show alongside comedian Julia Morris since 2015, and also appeared as a panelist on 10’s “The Project” and “The Living Room”.
Later this year, he will defect to the Seven Network, although his projects at his new TV home have not yet been revealed.
“I’m a Celebrity” will be back in South Africa this year, after two years of filming locally due to COVID-19 restrictions and lockdowns.
Network 10 also started teasing which celebrities might be competing in Season 9 of the show, saying there is “a Brownlow Medal winner, a comedian, TV host, a boxing lightweight and a celebrity chef”.
The network said: “While sharing their emotional baggage live on TV is highly encouraged, the usual South African creepy crawlies alone are bound to have our celebs running for the exits.”
In past seasons, local identities including Abbie Chatfield, Casey Donovan, Richard Reid and Miguel Maestre have won the show.
In its earlier seasons, Channel 10 ran the show earlier in the year, often against the rival networks’ tentpole sporting programs.
Its first local outing in 2015 had an overnight metro audience of 1.199 million viewers.
In later years, it moved the show to be even earlier in the calendar year, kicking off in January ahead of the official ratings period, but giving 10 a strong start to the year.
In 2021, it premiered to 1.031 million metro viewers, according to the overnight figures, while last year it slipped to 794,000 on its Jan. 3 debut.
This year the scheduling changed once more, with the network deciding to run the much-delayed “The Bachelors” in the January non-ratings period and moving the higher-rating “I’m a Celebrity” to April.