by Thinus Ferreira
TV ratings and the South African audience watching sport have declined with a massive plunge in the number of South Africans watching sport due to the Covid-19 pandemic - with ratings and the audience watching South African football and PSL games which have fallen, fuelled by the ongoing ban and lack of fans at stadiums for matches and Eskom's rolling electricity blackouts, Nielsen Sports Africa found in a study.
From 11.2 million in November 2019, to 9.8 million (February 2020), 8 million (January 2021), 7.4 million (March 2021), and just 4.2 million in November 2021, the last last 5 Soweto derbies have shockingly shed more than half of its viewership over just the past two years.
According to the sports analytics firm Nielsen Sports Africa in South Africa - which compiled a study to see how South African TV audience behaviour had changed during the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown - viewer interest is on a steep decline.
The ban on fans at stadiums is one of the factors which led to fewer viewers bothering to watch football matches on SuperSport on MultiChoice's DStv service, or the SABC.
On Sunday the City Press newspaper reported that according to the Nielsen Sport research, Eskom's electricity blackouts in South Africa is also having an extremely debilitating impact on viewership of football matches in South Africa.
"There was a sense that TV viewership would go up because people weren't allowed to watch matches live at stadiums, but that was incorrect," Jean Willers, Nielsen Sports Africa managing director, told City Press.
"The numbers have actually gone in the opposite direction and fewer people are watching football and sport in general on TV. People have started to lose interest and have moved on to other things. Loadshedding also played a huge role last year."
"When people aren't allowed to go to stadiums and there's also no electricity to watch TV, you can expect the numbers to be severely affected."
MultiChoice sponsors the PSL's DStv Premiership, the DStv Diski Challenge reserve league and the new DStv Compact Cup but as viewership and ratings decline, so will the value that sponsors derive from sport.
"It will become increasingly hard to attract sponsors in sport because of the shrinking audience," Jean Willers told the newspaper. "Sport is dependent on sponsorship and if things continue like this, the industry may never recover."
"When sponsors pull their money out, it means clubs can no longer afford to pay expenses like salaries and some may go bankrupt."
