by Thinus Ferreira
While The Estate on the struggling SABC3 keeps plunging in the ratings and the latest season of Idols on Mzansi Magic failed to regain its ratings sheen, South Africa's September TV ratings revealed several interesting viewership insights as the SABC's TV channels keep losing viewers and SABC3 fell to another new all-time viewership low.
1. When Scandal! is on, 1 in every 2 people watches
In September the public broadcaster's SABC1, SABC2 and SABC3 TV channels all lost ratings share with all three channels seeing a slight viewership and share decrease while the country's only free-to-air commercial broadcaster e.tv managed to increase its ratings.
Uzalo remains the most-watched TV show in South Africa, of the SABC and on SABC1 although it gave up viewers in September, slightly falling from 7.64 million in August to 6.87million viewers in September.
SABC1's perennial second and third place shows, Generations - The Legacy with 5.96 million viewers and Skeem Saam with 5.03 million viewers on SABC1 were slightly off from their August audiences.
e.tv's primetime soap Scandal! now holds the solid third place as South Africa's most watched TV show with 5.74 million viewers and a 48.3 share. It means that half of the available TV audience have their TV's tuned to Scandal! at 19:30 on a weeknight.
Scandal!'s lead-in, House of Zwide at 19:00 on e.tv held steady in September with 4.43 million viewers.
2. Cyril Ramaphosa - the presidential TV star
South African president Cyril Ramaphosa remains a South African TV star.
His prime time presidential address on 12 September announcing the country's move to Lockdown Level 2 lured 2.53 million viewers on SABC2 and an additional 2.03 million viewers on e.tv.
Besides those viewers watching on SABC News, eNCA and Newzroom Africa pushing the combined total even higher, means that he pulled a bigger audience than Muvhango in September that was SABC2's most-watched show with 3.69 million viewers.
On SABC1 the Zulu TV news bulletin was watched by 3.25 million viewers and the Xhosa TV news by 3.03 million viewers as the 4th and 5th most-watched programming in the channel.
3. The Estate finds better TV real estate on SABC1
After starting repeats of old episodes of The Estate on SABC1 from September, the repurposed SABC3 weekday soap lured 2.4 million viewers in its 19:30 timeslot with a 21.8 share - roughly the same as when uBettina Wethu was airing in the same timeslot.
The Estate's ratings fortune however continue to sink in its airing of first-run episodes on SABC3.
On SABC2 its Afrikaans weekday soap 7de Laan held steady in September at 1.09 million viewers, with the Setswana TV news pulling in 726 229 viewers during September, followed by the Afrikaans TV news with 703 432 viewers, and the Venda/Tsonga TV news with 607 324 viewers.
4. Morning Live keeps shining
SABC2's Morning Live breakfast show lured 602 002 viewers in September - more than some prime time shows like Speak Out at 572 545 on SABC2 or anything shown on SABC3, showing how valuable and lucrative the real estate of morning shows are to broadcasters as a coveted advertiser TV destination.
5. SABC3 and Con Air
The SABC's TV channel on life-support, SABC3, continues to bleed and remains in a very bad and deteriorating condition.
Strip out the once-off football match between Bafana Bafana against Ghana in Qatar on 6 September that lured 1.03 million viewers as SABC3's most watched piece of content for the month and SABC3 once again sagged to a new all-time low of 673 524 viewers at most for the film Con Air on 5 September.
This 673 524 viewers - the most SABC3 could garner for September besides the soccer match, is down further from SABC3's August highest audience of 733 963 for a Costa Rica nature documentary.
The English TV news bulletin on SABC3 at 18:00 lured 387 841 viewers - a far cry from e.tv's well-performing etv News bulletin at 20:00 that pulled 1.65 million viewers in September and the 1.52 million viewers who watched the eNCA-simulcast South Africa Tonight at 19:00 on e.tv.
6. The Estate in terminal first-run decline
With truly shocking viewership numbers it won't come as any surprise if The Estate on SABC3 produced by Clive Morris Productions gets cancelled like the channel did with High Rollers, is shifted permanently to SABC1 as a first-run show where it now airs as repeats since September, or is moved out of the shark-infested TV waters of 19:00.
Viewership for the expensive to produce series literally fell of the ratings cliff in September as its ratings keeps sliding lower month after month since its debut.
While The Estate still managed 300 738 viewers in August - up against the incredibly damaging House of Zwide on e.tv - the show literally disappeared in September and no longer shows up as one of the 20 most-watched shows on SABC3.
It means that The Estate plunged below the 291 793 viewers that an episode of Challenge SOS pulled in 20th position.
The talk show Unpacked with Relebogile that still had 304 444 viewers in August (more than The Estate and much cheaper to produce) also disappeared from SABC3 in September.
7. Deur Dik en Dun: e.tv's solid MVP TV bench
At e.tv the ratings life-signs are strong and stable - the life-blood for ad planners and buyers who must project and "guestimate" future viewership based on past and current viewership patterns.
Besides Scandal! and House of Zwide, Imbewu with 3.83 million viewers in third place and Durban Gen in 4th with 2.33 million viewers are the other two most valuable players in e.tv's top-4 TV bench.
Family Feud SA from Rapid Blue held stead at just over 2 million viewers in 5th place.
The Afrikaans-dubbed Turkish drama telenovela Deur Dik en Dun continues to shine with a whopping 1.67 million loyal viewers, with e.tv's strategy of customising Turkish telenovelas that is paying off handsomely.
8. Idols stays damaged
On DStv local reality drama continues to be the flavour of the month but viewers although hundreds of thousands of viewers are still not in the mood to return to Idols in the aftermath of the Somizi Mhlongo scandal.
Time will tell whether Idols in South Africa is permanently damaged and has started the ratings slide that eventually grabbed hold of American Idol in America.
In September the lurid cheater's expose reality series Uyajola 9/9 on Moja Love (DStv 157) surged to the top of the DStv ratings pile where Idols used to reign, grabbing 1.58 million DStv subscribers. Gomora on Mzansi Magic (DStv 161) followed in second place with 1.15 million viewers, and with The Queen in third with 1.02 million viewers.
Idols, produced by [SIC] Entertainment and now in the Top 10 Sunday live performances period of the 17th season, managed only 709 655 viewers at most during the month for the 19 September episode - very slightly up from August's 693 760 as only the 9th most watched show on DStv.
It's quite a fall for the series that reigned supreme in the ratings during previous seasons during this phase of the competition.
9. DStv sees new Giants rise
Other DStv stand-out include the little show that could, Giants of the City, on Moja Love pulling 791 241 viewers in September, showing strong growth from August's 604 503 viewers.
MultiChoice's top 30 most watched shows in September all came from just 3 TV channels: M-Net's Mzansi Magic and Mzansi Wethu, as well as Siyaya TV's Moja Love.
