by Thinus Ferreira
South Africa's TV ratings system will switch from the Television Audience Measurement Survey (TAMS) to Total Video Measurement (TVM) on 1 January 2027 as the country's replaced currency for measuring video audiences.
According to the Broadcast Research Council of South Africa (BRC) that stopped publicly publishing basic TV ratings unlike what continues in other countries worldwide, TVM will replace TAMS to bring "linear television, time-shifted viewing, connected TV and online video into a single daily measurement system".
The BRC says that TV and online measurement will go live together with no "interim TV-only phase" and also no "back-trending against TAMS data".
Gary Whitaker, BRC CEO, says "The question is no longer whether we measure online video but rather how we measure the whole picture reliably, on one panel, under one rulebook".
"TVM does exactly that, and it does it in one move on 1 January 2027."
According to the BRC, TVM will provide two levels of reporting within the same dataset. Broadcaster Total TV will extend the current television currency to include connected TV viewing and broadcaster-owned content viewed across devices.
Total Video will add platform-level online viewing on personal devices, including broadcaster video-on-demand services, subscription and other streaming
services, as well as certified social video.
The BRC says this methodology will allow the industry to "assess broadcaster audiences and the wider online video market using a common measurement framework".
TVM will be produced according to the BRC's Mandatory Calculation and Reporting Rules.
Software suppliers that meet the BRC's certification requirements
will be able to provide the data, allowing broadcasters, agencies and advertisers to continue working with their preferred technology partners.
The BRC will start to release real TVM test data from end-October 2026, and says it will be done "after broadcaster scrutiny has taken place", in order to give the industry two
months to prepare for the transition.
Gary Whitaker says the "preparation period is intended to give the market practical experience rather than requiring businesses to work from technical specifications
alone".
"Giving broadcasters, agencies and advertisers genuine test data more than two months before go-live means teams can retrain, recalibrate their systems
and validate their outputs against real numbers well ahead of trading on the new currency."
The BRC says that "Broadcaster streaming on the big screen will be measured and credited to the relevant broadcaster if within the time-shift window, other viewing to
broadcaster content and non-broadcaster platforms such as Netflix and YouTube will be reported at platform level"
According to the BRC, a further upgrade is planned for mid-2027 that will introduce programme and episode-level reporting for broadcaster digital platforms and that will use the
same underlying measurement system rather than creating a new currency.
The BRC says "Rather than extend linear television measurement only for another measurement cycle and introduce online video at a later stage, the BRC has chosen
a single transition to TVM".
"The BRC will remain responsible for the underlying research, panel, measurement systems, daily currency, reporting rules and software certification.
Commercial services such as AdIntel, go-to-market services and buy- or sell-side trading tools will remain outside the BRC's role."
