by Thinus Ferreira
e.tv's two new local soaps Nikiwe and Smoke & Mirrors that replaced the cancelled Imbewu and Durban Gen appear to both be prime-time rating disappointments, making their debuts on Monday 17 April with weaker viewership than the shows they replaced and costing e.tv over a million in lost viewers.
While Durban Gen still raked in as much as 1 967 574 viewers in April in its 18:30 timeslot before it went off the air, the little publicised Nikiwe - produced by Parental Advisory Productions - managed to pull 1 455 901 viewers at most in April after it replaced Durban Gen in the same timeslot.
It means that Nikiwe lost e.tv in excess of over half a million viewers with 511 673 viewers who have tuned out of e.tv after the end of Durban Gen. e.tv's audience share decreased from 21% to 18% - a loss of 3 percentage points - during this time period.
At 21:00 Imbewu still lured 2 275 169 viewers at most in April to e.tv in the timeslot. On 17 April the little publicised Smoke & Mirrors - produced by The Final Chapter Production - in the same timeslot, made a very disappointing debut with just 1 712 591 viewers.
That's another loss of over another half a million viewers with 562 578 people who decided to no longer watch e.tv during the time period and decreased the timeslot's audience share of the channel from 30.1% to 23.4% - a decrease of 6.7 percentage points.
Together Nikiwe and Smoke & Mirrors lost and cost eMedia's e.tv channel a whopping 1 074 251 viewers in the same month - a combined audience share loss of 9.7%.
Neither Nikiwe nor Smoke & Mirrors are top 5 shows on e.tv's list of most-watched shows for April like Imbewu and Durban Gen were.
The lack of buzz and ratings for Nikiwe and Smoke & Mirrors are not surprising, given the lack of any real publicity efforts e.tv made to bring the new content under the media's attention and cutting out national press covering television from a bizarre Johannesburg event for the shows held just a day before their broadcast debut.
