The general format of the show is that thousands of hopeful performers from across South Africa auditioned in front of the judges.
From these, the top 10 are selected, then each week, viewers had several hours following the broadcast of the previous episode to vote by phone, SMS or online for their favourite contestant.
Randall Abrahams, Dave Thompson, Marcus Brewster and Penny Lebyane were the judges in the first season.
[3] In 2006, the show had a spin-off called Afrikaanse Idols on sister channel Kyknet, where exactly the same format was executed.
However, the South African show did last shorter than the Polish version and therefore Heinz Winckler became the second Idol winner worldwide on 17 June 2002.
The second season ran from June to October 2003 and was won by then 20-year-old Anke Pietrangeli who was given the nickname The Kimberlite' by the viewers during the show.
The third season aired in the second half of 2005 with an unchanged judging panel and Colin Moss as the only host of the show.
The Grand Final took place at Gold Reef City, Johannesburg on 27 November 2005 between Karin Kortje and Gift Gwe.
Her best performances included moving ballads such as "Greatest Reward" by Celine Dion and "Dance with my Father" by Luther Vandross.
However, she proved her versatility and impressed the judges with excellent renditions of more up-tempo songs such as "Dance with Somebody" by Whitney Houston and "Ain't no Other Man" by Christina Aguilera.
M-Net announced a fifth season of South African Idols which premiered on Sunday, 1 February 2009, with a summer vibe and new rules.
The investigation hit the front page of the Times on 8 May 2009 and later in the day it was announced on the Idols website that the recount had showed that Jason Hartman had received 200000 more votes than Sasha-Lee Davids(of 2.3 million total votes in the finale (recount)).
After discussion between M-Net and FremantleMedia (the format owners), Jason Hartman and Sasha-Lee Davids were declared winners.
On 2 October 2012, Khaya Mthethwa from Durban in KwaZulu-Natal was declared the winner, becoming the first black contestant in the show's history to win.
Vincent Bones' inspiring life story of being a street kid at the age of 12 after his mother died touched the hearts of many as he emerged as the tenth South African Idols winner on 23 November 2014.
Runner-up was Bongiwe Silinda, the second black woman in South African Idols history to go as far as the finale.
[8] The fourteenth season of Idols began to broadcast on 8 July 2018 and finale was held on 18 November 2018, naming the winner 17-year-old Yanga Sobetwa.
On 17 November 2019, just before 19:00 CAT, the show's presenter and producer, ProVerb announced that the fifteenth season winner was 24-year-old Luyolo Yiba.
[13] The outcome of Idols I was followed by a row of complaints about Heinz Winckler's victory, as many viewers saw the result as injustice and racially biased.
[14] Third season winner Karin Kortje was not so lucky in her personal life as her boyfriend was charged with robbery and murder just months after the show.
The investigation hit the front page of The Times on 8 May 2009, and later in the day it was announced on the official Idols website that the recount had showed that Jason Hartman had received 200,000 more votes than Sasha-Lee Davids, who was originally declared as the winner in the grand finale, with 52.77% of the votes.
Four days later, Idols announced that, after discussions between M-Net and FremantleMedia (the format owners), Hartman and Davids were declared joint winners.
Reportedly, police had to be called to the scene backstage to intervene after some of the twins' family and fans threatened violence.
The seventeenth season saw judge Somizi Mhlongo being asked to step-aside by the show to deal with domestic abuse allegations against him by his husband Mohale Motaung.