To use the word amazing, is to use an understatement. An ABSOLUTELY AMAZING thing is happening right at this very moment, showing the transformative power of social media on the South African television landscape. On Wednesday I wrote RIGHT HERE about the new Survivor SA Facebook group.
Now, on Friday afternoon, barely days after M-Net started that group, Survivor SA Santa Carolina has added more than 1 900 members on Facebook. This is an enormously impressive feat, considering that M-Net has done very little marketing or publicity for this internet group - and given the fact that this is all happening before the first episode of the TV show has even aired. (It only starts Wednesday at 19:30 on M-Net).
That M-Net has been able to get almost 2 000 ''fans'' for a TV show that hasn't even started - and so quickly - is a South African TV industry record. It has never happened before, and by whatever number the amount of members stand by Wednesday afternoon before the show's first episode goes out, it will be rewriting the record books and what is possible in terms of engaging South African TV audiences around a specific TV property. It's scary, and it's utterly amazing.
What this shows - as South Africa (and it's TV industry) enters and edges ever closer into a fully digitally immersed broadcasting environment - is that TV shows, their impact, audience reach, viewership and success will no longer be able to be defined just by the number of TV viewers and ratings alone.
Even if Survivor SA Santa Carolina fails in terms of TV ratings and the number of TV viewers (which I highly doubt at this point) this M-Net show has already created a brand-new benchmark and set a brand-new South African TV record - and did it even days before it has even started.
