It's a steamy Thursday night here in South Africa's black cultural hub, and a pair of bubbly 40-somethings named Florence and Portia are camped out at Jozi FM, a community radio station.

They're here because they're tired of being two-timed by a man named Thabo.

He professes his love to Portia one day, Florence the next. So tonight, with help from a popular radio show called "Cheaters," they aim to lure him in - and expose him on air. They even hope he'll be jeered afterward by throngs who gather in the station's parking lot.

In the era of AIDS - with a new UN report saying 89 million Africans could contract the disease by 2025, and with about 1 in 9 South Africans already infected - "Cheaters" has become a South African radio sensation. The show is so popular, say listeners and hosts, in part because it's one of the first public forums addressing a common behavior that's spreading AIDS fast: infidelity. Despite the Jerry Springer vibe, including occasional brawls, "What we stand for is being faithful," says host Matthew Montshojang.

The basic concept is this: Suspect your husband, wife, boyfriend, or girlfriend is cheating? Go to Jozi FM with details, and they'll put an investigative team on their tail - following them 24 hours a day, nabbing discarded hotel or ATM receipts, sometimes videotaping romantic dalliances.

Typically, alleged cheaters come on air to defend themselves from their partners' charges. Then cohost Prince Tshabalala lays out the evidence collected by his investigators.

Results can be chaotic. On a recent show, the hosts barged into a house and caught a man and his mistress canoodling. The wife had come with the radio team, and the mistress lunged at the wife with a broken bottle. Mr. Montshojang, the host, got slashed as he separated the women. This episode proved true to the show's disclaimer: "Cheaters is not for sensitive listeners."

It's all based on a US reality TV show that hasn't attained nearly as much fame as its South African imitator. One reason may be that, in South Africa, exposing cheaters is an explosive idea.

Cheating is winked at here, says Montshojang. One saying goes: "If you don't have a mistress, you won't have a warm house."

Behind such enigmatic proverbs are several factors that give rise to what sociologists call "concurrent relationships" among many southern African adults. One factor is a long-established migrant-labor system, which makes miners live far from their families - and more apt to take mistresses. Another is huge income disparities, often between BMW-driving men and poor young women living in tin shacks, who engage in "transactional sex." Older men give teenage girls "gifts," which the teens use to buy clothes or cellphone airtime.

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