by Thinus Ferreira
Over the last 5 years the struggling SABC3 has lost a shocking 50% of its entire audience with the South African public broadcaster's only commercial TV channel that continues to shed viewers in the TV ratings race despite yet another on-air and programming makeover earlier this year.
The TV ratings and viewership of the beleaguered SABC3, rebranded as "S3" in April this year continue to slide, with SABC3 that now has literally half the audience size than it had just half a decade ago when it was already in very big trouble.
From 1.525 million viewers that SABC3 had in January 2016 - already a small percentage from the channel's heydeys in the 2000s when it was known by its "Quality shows" slogan - ongoing viewership and TV rating erosion saw its viewership plummet 49.51% over the past 5 years to a maximum of just 769 858 viewers in July 2021.
In response to a media query about SABC3 ratings slide the past 5 years, Gugu Ntuli, SABC spokesperson tells TVwithThinus that "The SABC can confirm a decline in S3 audience ratings over 5 years and this is as a result of various reasons, including the rapidly changing broadcasting environment as well as the fire effects of Covid-19 in many fields, including broadcasting".
Where SABC3 could still sell ad spot pricing to advertisers, guaranteeing viewers of over a million for some of its shows and timeslots during 2016 and 2017, S3 is now down to selling audiences measuring in the 600 000 and 700 000s at most, with most programmes on the channel getting even lower ratings.
While SABC3 was supposed to serve as a revenue generator for the SABC's public access channels like SABC1 and SABC2 and their programming, the ongoing, steady decline of SABC3 has meant that the opposite has been happening - with the financially struggling public broadcaster's public channels in essence financing the beleaguered S3's content expenditure.
Although its ratings and creative input kept sliding as it aged, SABC3's primetime local soap Isidingo still delivered in excess of 780 000 viewers on weeknights when it left the SABC3 airwaves in March 2020.
A year and a half later, its replacement, The Estate, produced by Clive Morris Productions, made its debut on SABC3 with a disappointing 529 123 in the 19:00-timeslot in April this year. The show's ratings have since slid to hovering barely over the 500 000-viewers mark.
South African viewers do know that S3 exists - they just don't want to watch what's on it.
While SABC3 used to acquire and show a mix of premium international and local content placed in primetime throughout the 2000s that could effectively compete with especially eMedia's commercial free-to-air channel e.tv and MultiChoice's M-Net (DStv 101) as SABC3's biggest broadcast rivals in luring higher LSM-viewers, that is no longer the case.
The channel can however still be a ratings draw - if the content resonates with enough viewers.
In April 2020 when SABC3 broadcast Steven Soderbergh's compelling 2011-film Contagion during the height of the first wave of South Africa's Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown, viewership for the channel surged to a whopping 4.465 million viewers and an absolutely incredible 49.2 audience share.
It means that out of every two TV sets turned on the night of 5 April 2020 in the country, one was tuned to SABC3.
Likewise, in July 2018 when SABC1's Generations - The Legacy was shifted to SABC3 because of sport on SABC1, ratings surged to 6.935 million on SABC3 that easily lifted the channel above the ratings of anything shown on sister channel SABC2.
Here is SABC3's ratings slide over the past 5 years in ratings numbers:
January 2016: 1.525 million
June 2016: 1.492 million
January 2017: 1.729 million
June 2017: 1.457 million
January 2018: 1.045 million
June 2018: 6.335 million
January 2019: 873 479
February: 821 676
March: 791 540
April: 844 226
May: 925 431
June: 2.006 million
July: 3.273 million
August: 956 738
September: 989 449
October: 957 500
November: 936 217
December: 780 561
January 2020: 1.014 million
February: 1.093 million
March: 877 800
April: 4.465 million
May: 1.076 million
June: 828 166
July: 1.166 million
August: 1.369 million
September: 810 424
October: 1.025 million
November: 1.242 million
December: 596 656
January 2021: 903 884
February: 620 419
March: 1.557 million
April (relaunch as S3): 783 061
May: 680 196
June: 731 009
July: 769 858
The cause
SABC spokesperson Gugu Ntuli, says SABC3's "audience numbers have been dropping for the past 5 years because competitors have been quite aggressive at a time when the SABC was going through serious cash flow challenges and thus limited the ability for the broadcaster to respond substantively to its challenges".
Some of the biggest challenges for SABC3 came as a result of the loss of its "first-to-market" pillar titles like Days of Our Lives (that was since picked up by rival e.tv) and The Bold and the Beautiful.
Their absence as lead-in shows to the rest of SABC3's primetime schedule had a debilitating, ratings destruction effect.
The banishment of Days and Bold led to a drop in SABC3's audience numbers going into the long-running local Isidingo which in turn was also not yielding the required revenue anymore. Then even Isidingo was culled and ended with its last episode in May 2020 without any immediate replacement.
Like falling dominos, even in daytime SABC3 then started to sag in the ratings, because of the loss of daytime repeats of Isidingo and other shows.
Add a litany of SABC3 signature shows from Top Billing to High Rollers that abruptly got axed over the past few years and it's clear how the channel dismantled the character and content identity it once had without replacing it with anything else that gave viewers a reason to stick around.
Then there's the fact that SABC3 has always had the smallest broadcast transmission footprint of the SABC's analogue TV channels.
The halt of the creation of any further analogue transmission towers the past decade to try and expand SABC3's footprint, as well as the switch-off of analogue transmitters in the drawn-out digital migration process to digital terrestrial television (DTT) further eroded its possible viewership.
Don't forget that the former SABC COO Hlaudi Motsoeneng's drastic and abrupt "80% local, 20% international" local content decree also inflicted massive damage on SABC3, completely destabilising the channel's schedule that in turn led to big chunks of its audience fleeing.
Once SABC3 executives were forced to remove foreign shows from the channel without any coherent replacement stategy, a lot of viewers also evaporated.
"S3 also lost major audiences while catering for Covid-19 messaging and educational programming," says Gugu Ntuli.
Besides Covid-19 messages, the SABC also decided to fill the SABC3 schedule with educational content. Even those viewers who remained with the channel eventually finally fled when its schedule suddenly switched to Woza Matric content for as much as 5 hours per day, 7 days a week. This lasted for months, further damaging ratings.
Trying to reverse falling ratings
The S3 schedule is being rebuilt - the first pillar being the new local soap The Estate, with episodes of the show that is now also being rebroadcast on SABC1 during primetime to try and lure viewers to its struggling sister channel.
"It must be noted that we have just started a 3-year strategy in April 2021. S3 needs to grow in a sustainable way with a clear brand and programming promise. This needs an environment of support and consistency to flourish, as well as great PR and marketing backing," says Gugu Ntuli.
"The Estate will remain the prime local drama on S3," she says.
About The Estate's sagging ratings - a show that was launched with barely any above-the-line marketing spend or PR behind it - Gugu Ntuli says that its performance is "impacted by the performance of the entire channel that requires a lot of investment and time for a proper turn-around".
"The loss of audiences is a quick process for a platform but to build audiences starting from a low base does take time, particularly in prime time in a very congested channel space. Despite this, the SABC is very proud of The Estate property on S3."
"We are not giving the series to SABC1 but we have requested that SABC1 plays the series from the beginning to allow audiences to catch-up with the storyline, particularly for audiences that may have missed the start of the show."
"We are confident that in time audiences will increase for The Estate and allow the SABC to recoup its investment and grow audiences for the show."
