by Thinus Ferreira
South Africa's national shutdown period in South Africa to try and curb the spread of the Covid-19 coronavirus has given rise to record TV ratings in the country with a massive surge of millions of viewers tuning in for both news and entertainment content.
The massive increase of up to 100% in certain daytime slots and a huge swell in primetime audiences for broadcasters across the board are fuelled by a confluence of several factors that are pushing viewership to astounding TV ratings levels - including stunning co-viewing audience demographics - rarely seen in South Africa.
Overlapping moves have each created their own TV spring tide in March and April. All of these factors together are causing a King tide TV ratings bonanza for South African broadcasters and advertisers on TV.
Firstly, millions of different, constantly shifting blocks of TV households that virtually disappeared from the ratings system across the country during ongoing rolling TV blackouts when TV sets went dead all came back online during March when Eskom suddenly halted loadshedding.
Secondly, South Africa's national shutdown period of 21-days announced by president Cyril Ramaphosa is seeing families - adults and children - bored and looking for news, information and entertainment, all cloistered at home and watching not just a lot more TV but watching television together.
Interestingly, the first term school holiday, combined with the national shutdown, are seeing millions of families shut-in at home but crucially important, not roaming about in out-of-home vacation: They're home where their auto-detect TV meters are installed and not in holiday homes or hotels that usually take them off the ratings grid, like during December holidays when viewership traditionally ebbs.
Thirdly, pay-TV services like MultiChoice have opened access to more TV channels and more TV channels on DStv to lower-tiered subscribers, making popular channels like the M-Net-packaged Mzansi Magic (DStv 161) and SuperSport 1 (DStv 201) temporarily available to a much larger potential audience.
One unintended longterm TV impact of the national shutdown period will be the millions of South Africa viewers who are exposed to new content, who sample new shows and new channels, and in the content discovery process form new TV habits that they likely won't break as they continue to watch new soaps, series and other shows that they'll likely follow even after they're no longer cooped up at home.
MultiChoice has seen daytime audiences grow by up to 100%.
Meanwhile ratings are up for the commercial free-to-air channel e.tv, and even the TV channels of the struggling South African public broadcaster like SABC1, SABC2 and SABC3 with all three seeing bump ups of literally millions of viewers for shows like TV news bulletins.
South Africa's and the SABC's most-watched TV show, Uzalo on SABC1 once again surged over the 10 million viewership mark in March with 10.2 million viewers (28.59 AR / 64.8 share), a surge of almost a million viewers from February's 9.3 million high-mark.
While runner-up Generations was slightly up from 8.027 million viewers to 8.2 million, Skeem Saam showed a massive increase from 5.9 million to a whopping 7.25 million viewers ( 20.16 AR / 53.6 share) in March.
The Xhosa TV news bulletin on SABC1 - still the most-watched TV news bulletin in South Africa - jumped an absolutely staggering 1.2 million viewers in just one month in March from 4.1 million viewers to 5.39 million viewers (15 AR).
Incredibly, the Zulu TV news bulletin (SABC1) showed an even bigger ratings surge from an even smaller number: up an astounding 1.34 million viewers from February's 3.94 million viewers to 5.28 million in March.
On SABC2 the Venda weekday primetime soap Muvhango surged from 4.6 million to 5.04 million viewers in March remaining as the channel's most-watched show, while the Afrikaans weekday soap 7de Laan climbed from 1.7 million to 2 million viewers.
Astoundingly, president Cyril Ramaphosa Covid-19 lockdown announcement about Covid-19 on 23 March on SABC2 pulled an incredible, never-before-seen record-rating of 2.89 million viewers for a Monday night - a bigger audience than the 2.75 million viewers who watched president Cyril Ramaphosa's 2020 State of the Nation address on the same channel on 13 February.
Meanwhile, president Cyril Ramaphosa's first Covid-19 speech on 15 March also lured 1.4 million South Africans to tune in, while SABC2's Tswana TV news bulletin likewise gained and showed a massive increase in viewers as it surged from 1 million to 1.75 million in March. The Afrikaans TV news bulletin climbed from 1.38 million to 1.6 million.
While the struggling SABC3 usually tops out at just under 900 000 viewers for its most-watched programme (Isidingo's series finale provided no ratings bump), this past Sunday night's scheduling of the 2011 Steven Soderberg film, Contagion, led to a shocking blockbuster ratings blow-out for the channel on 5 April.
Contagion lured a whopping 4.3 million viewers (12.1 AR). To put it in perspective: The channel hardly ever manages to get anything over a 2.4 audience rating (AR) at best.
With a 42.9 share for Contagion it means that almost one in every two TV sets that were turned on in South Africa on Sunday night, were tuned to SABC3 as word-of-mouth spread about the fictional coronavirus pandemic movie on social media and viewers made it a second screen co-viewing TV event.
On e.tv Rhythm City lifted from 3.4 million to 3.8 million viewers as the channel's third most-watched programme, with Imbewu climbing from 3.5 million to 4.14 million and Scandal! retaining its crown as the most-watched show on the channel upping its rating from 4.8 million to 5.17 million (14.36 AR / 34 share). The tune-in to e.tv News is also up, now at 1.8 million viewers.
On pay-TV where ratings matter less than subscriber numbers M-Net and MultiChoice bosses must be smiling broadly anyway: The new series Gomora drew an astounding 1.092 million viewers to Mzansi Magic (DStv 161) for its debut episode on 30 March. It then grew to 1.7 million viewers on the next night, instantly becoming the channel's new third most-watched show.
Viewership of Mzansi Magic and The Queen as its most-watched show has likewise surged.
The Queen now commands 2.28 million viewers, up from 1.2 million - an addition of over a million viewers in just a month. Second-most watched show Our Perfect Wedding also doubled its audience from 904 223 viewers in February to an incredible 1.833 million viewers in March.
The tabloid cheaters show Uyajola 9/9 on Moja Love (DStv 157) continues to draw crowds gaining slightly in March and going from 619 130 to 636 867 viewers.
eNCA (DStv 403) remained the most-watched TV news channel in South Africa with the South Africa Tonight broadcast with Uveka Rangappa on the night of the national lockdown announcement on 23 March that pulled a massive 912 336 viewers - the biggest audience during March for any local or international TV news channel available in the country.
