Viewership numbers for TopTV is coming, but it won't be viewership figures per channel, but rather for TopTV as a whole.
Since the new pay TV entrant to the South African television market started its commercial satellite pay TV service in May last year, no independent, verifiable, viewership figures or audience ratings have been available.
The South African Advertising Research Foundation (Saarf) said today that TopTV viewership is coming and will soon be available. There will be one snag however - it's not going to be possible for ad buyers or media planners to find out what the South African viewership is for a specific channel on TopTV. ''The only viewership figures that will be released initially will be the overall total - just the overall viewership of TopTV,'' says Saarf, saying that the sample of TopTV subscribers that represent all South African television viewers is still too small.
''Only overall viewership will be available for TopTV,'' says Saarf. ''The sample of TopTV subscribers is too small and not yet robust enough for measurement of separate channels on the TopTV bouquet. We're speaking about ,04 of a rating point. You just can't break it up at the moment.''
Saarf says when MultiChoice's DStv pay platform entered the market it was measured in the same way initially. ''It's too small initially as a part of the total TV audience to pick up individual channels but as DStv grew you're later able to separate out individual channels. The same approach will be taken with TopTV.''
ALSO READ: South African television viewership in total could actually be higher ... if the content broadcasters are showing weren't so crap - viewership research expert.
