by Thinus Ferreira
South African viewers appear to be over Idols with the latest 18th season of the reality singing competition on Mzansi Magic (DStv 161) reaching a meagre 743 516 viewers during July, unable to reverse its massive TV ratings collapse as viewers chose to no longer tune back in after the scandal that had engulfed the now-returned judge and socialite Somizi Mhlongo.
From a viewership perspective, Idols SA now seems broken similar to how the ratings of American Idol - once it started to tank in the United States during its 11th season - never recovered again.
While Idols started off its 17th season a year ago in South Africa in July 2021 with 1 018 607 viewers on Mzansi Magic (DStv 161) as the 4th most-watched show on all of DStv for the month, the [SIC] Entertainment produced show suddenly plunged to 10th place on DStv's most-watched list with 693 760 viewers at most in August 2021, a season-low of just 683 814 viewers in October, and finished the season in November with 753 367 viewers at most.
The Fremantle format show - with Gavin Wratten as director and executive producer, along with Anneke de Ridder and ProVerb (Tebogo Thekisho) as co-producers and with ProVerb also being the host - kicked off season 18 in July with M-Net executives and the producers serving up a revamped set of judges for the Mzansi Magic show.
The producers decided to bring back Somizi Mhlongo who left after a scandal-engulfed year in 2021 and dropped both Randall Abrahams and Unathi Nkayi who didn't see their contracts as Idols judges renewed and got replaced by artist Thembi Seete and rapper-producer JR Bogopa.
The changes however don't seem to have brought disinterested DStv subscribers back to Mzansi Magic's Sunday evenings timeslot, with the new 18th season luring only 743 516 viewers at most during its July debut - far off from the over a million viewers it managed to pull in years past for season debuts.
The second Idols episode of the new season on 24 July was the most-watched of the month's three Idols episodes with the other two episodes pulling even fewer than 743 516 viewers.
Idols ranked 4th on Mzansi Magic's most-watched list for the month of July with a 8.4 audience share, behind episodes of Gomora, eHostela and Our Perfect Wedding.
At a press conference before the launch of the 18th season, TVwithThinus asked about Idols' ratings plunge and whether the changes in judges for the latest season have been made as a response to try and reverse the show's declining viewership.
Nomsa Philiso, MultiChoice's head of programming, said "In part it is to get the ratings back and also to attract new audiences, right. So, you would know that from around 2017 we started seeing some level of fatigue - some level of viewer fatigue in terms of Idols. Part of us refreshing the judges is also us trying to say that we're going to give you guys a much bigger and better Idols".
