Survvor SA Panama's debut episode in 2006 pulled in 1,25 million viewers and Survivor SA Malaysia in 2007 also had more viewers, but M-Net has since lost it's Open Time window (resulting in less marketing opportunities to create awareness under viewers) and has less analogue stand-alone decoders in use, which has an impact on the number of viewers.
For its debut episode Survivor SA Santa Carolina did exactly the same as American Idol and was more popular than other hugely liked M-Net TV fare such as The Mentalist, Binnelanders, FlashForward and Egoli. Survivor SA Santa Carolina also has a much larger social media-awareness and interaction with viewers and fans and the official Survivor SA Santa Carolina website (HERE) has also lured much more visitors than in previous seasons.
For more on this and M-Net's reaction on the viewership as well as comment on the social media aspect, click on READ MORE below.
''M-Net is happy with the viewership of Survivor SA Santa Carolina - especially given the fact that it strengthens our Wednesday night viewership numbers,'' Lani Lombard, M-Net's head of publicity told me. ''Just as shows like Big Brother and Idols proved, reality shows garner lots of followers across multiple platforms.''
Lani Lombard said that already more additional video material has been downloaded from the Survivor SA Santa Carolina website than ever before - an average of 3 000 video snippets more per episode has been viewed by fans than in the second season.
''We were also pleasantly surprised by the activity that the show has created on Facebook and Twitter and requests for Survivor SA Santa Carolina public appearances are pouring in,'' said Lani Lombard.
