Disney's Tangled animation movie that M-Net scheduled for the primetime Sunday night movie on 2 October created and maintained a massive viewership surge for the pay broadcaster. M-Net really doesn't stop the magic.
Sadly South African broadcasters - because they don't care, or don't feel the need, or don't have people who know how to - don't send out short weekly press releases like in America bragging about their shows and their channels and how they're performing.
So, South African journalists covering television - but more interested in Kenny and Khanyi - don't simply just get that information spoon-fed to them. Even less know how to interpret it, or even care. Hence, you hardly see actual independent ratings analysis news stories regularly in South Africa.
So here's how Tangled did, which no-one will say: The movie had exactly the same viewership as the Idols SA finale on M-Net - even more impressive considering its in a later primetime timeslot where it becomes more difficult to pull an audience. Tangled basically worked harder and performed better than Idols to keep the same viewership, although shown much later.
With its 1.4 AR, M-Net's scheduling of the movie on Sunday night got the pay broadcaster more viewers than it's top 10 shows Blue Bloods, CSI Miami, CSI New York, CSI, NCIS Los Angeles and Hawaii Five-0 usually does, or did in that week. Even Sunday's new The X Factor USA (as the 5th most popular M-Net show now which gets an 0,8 AR rating) is outranked by Tangled, which means Disney lured more viewers in South Africa than Simon Cowell.
Break down the demographics and Tangled was the number one piece of programming under all children on M-Net for the week. (Who by the way is letting their children watch Predators on a Friday night to make that the 4th most watched thing overall on M-Net under children, and the second most watched movie after Tangled by children on M-Net? Bad.)
ALSO READ: Rating analysis - Oprah! Idols! Three Talk! More on Isidingo's viewership resurgence, Bold's decline and SABC1's unimpressive 18:00 timeslot.
