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I can exclusively break the news that the first episode of the 3 part Oprah Winfrey Show finale on SABC3 that the channel moved into primetime at 19:30 on Thursdays (and which started this past Thursday) almost doubled the viewership of the timeslot with a massive surge in share as well.
Part I of Surprise Oprah! A Farewell Spectacular (followed this Thursday at 19:30 with Part II and the final Oprah Winfrey Show on Thursday 14 July) created a primetime viewership tsunami for SABC3.
In the super tough Thursday primetime 19:32 hour The Oprah Winfrey Show pulled an incredibly impressive 4,9 audience rating (AR) (all adults 15+). That translates to a massive 1,365 million viewers in South Africa for the show. Compare this 4,9 AR viewership figure with a rating of 2,6 AR on SABC3 in the same timeslot the previous week (23 June), and the monthly average of 2,2 ARs for the preceding four weeks. Oprah basically almost doubled the viewership in the SABC3 timeslot in one swell swoop.
The share - the number of total TV sets in households tuned to a specific show on a specific TV channel - also made an incredible jump from 6,6% the previous week (23 June) to a massive 13,7% share last Thursday for Part I. (The monthly average share for the timeslot on SABC3 is 5,9%.) It means that the share - the number of TV sets tuned to SABC3 - more than doubled for Oprah in primetime.
Because the final 3 Oprah episodes that SABC3 moved into primetime are staggered (meaning they build on each other - Part I leads into Part II as the continuation and conclusion of the same recorded event, and then the very final episode) the great news for the channel is that the Oprah viewership can only continue to grow. Even more terrific record-setting ratings are expected as existing viewers not only come back for the next two episodes, but further viewers are lured to the TV moment must-see spectacle.
