The Television Audience Measurement Survey (TAMS) who measure TV viewing in South Africa has adjusted the TV universe (meaning the complete number of TV households in South Africa who could potentially be watching television on a given day) for January 2010 by 4%. That means an additional 837 833 viewers joined the existing number of TV viewers in the country.
DStv, the only pay TV option currently in South Africa, actually grew by 33% (1,129 million viewers), while the share of free television declined by 1% (291 000 viewers).
I just spent some time working through all of the numbers in the various updated sheets.
What is all basically means is that although the number of TV viewers in South Africa are growing, pay TV viewers are starting to comprise a bigger and bigger share of this total number. More and more TV viewers are becoming pay TV subscribers.
Click on READ MORE for more interesting analysis on the changing face of the South African TV viewing public.
According to the South African Advertising Research Foundation's (SAARF) senior technical support executive, Claire Welsch, South African TV viewers behaviour are changing. ''There is a clear shift towards DStv, whose adult universe rose from 3,392 million viewers to 4,522 million,'' she says. ''As a whole, free TV is now competing head-to-head with satellite.''
DStv is also no longer an ''elite'' TV option. More households with a lower monthly income are willing and prepared to subscribe to pay TV, with the cheaper DStv Compact option fuelling pay TV uptake in South Africa. ''DStv is no longer the exclusive preserve of the upper classes,'' says Welsch. ''More and more lower income households are moving to pay TV.''
