BREAKING. South Africa's TV audience steadily increasing; DStv Compact households surpass MultiChoice's DStv Premium bouquet.

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South Africa's TV audience is steadily increasing with a massive increase in pay TV uptake in South Africa thanks to huge growth in MultiChoice's DStv Compact offering and the growing popularity of the cheaper bouquet aimed towards the lower end of the market.

"DStv has made large increases and from viewing figures its very clear that MultiChoice is selling the DStv Compact bouquet like there is no tomorrow," Craig Johnson from Nielsen South Africa told ad planners, media buyers and media specialists at the quarterly industry update of the South African Advertising Research Foundation (Saarf).

The TV audience measurement company is also seeing not just increases in the overall number of TV households and TV viewers in South Africa, but also households owning and using a personal video recorder (PVR). "M-Net is the only broadcaster where its viewership is steadily decreasing - but it's got to do with M-Net not being able to switch-over to digital terrestrial broadcasting yet and the phasing out of its analogue decoders. Once digital terrestrial television (DTT) starts in South Africa, M-Net will get there," Craig Johnson said.

South Africa's TV universe - the pivotal number ad buyers, planners, broadcasters and media strategists use to allocate and make advertising campaign decisions - has grown by more thousands of people.

"The interesting thing is that DStv Compact households in South Africa has now firmly overtaken DStv Premium households," said Craig Johnson. DStv Premium households within the TV universe are estimated at 1,75 million and DStv Compact at 1,85 million in South Africa.

On Digital Media's (ODM) TopTV has also shown growth and is estimated at 205 797 households after two years since it started.

The latest viewership data for April 2012 shows for instance not just a total TV viewership increase for South Africa, but also a huge increase for DStv viewership. SABC viewership is increasing as well largely attributed to SABC1. SABC2 however is down (-4,3%) while SABC3, M-Net and e.tv remain flat.

Time-shifted viewing (TSV) under South African TV viewers thanks to DStv's PVR is also growing. TopTV doesn't have a PVR in the market yet.

Between January and May 2012, viewership data shows about 25 000 people who are watching time-shifted programming daily (live plus viewing on the same day as live (VOSDAL) viewing). It increases over a 7 day period. Although the bulk of added time-shifted viewing happens with the first 3 days of a recording, significant TV viewing happens up to 7 days after a broadcast.

"Even though the number is still small compared to the rest of the world, South Africa's time-shifted viewing pattern follows exactly the international trend where significant viewing gains are being made for programming up to 7 days later with cumulative time-shifted viewing," said Craig Johnson.

DStv BoxOffice and DStv's video On Demand programming and offerings are not measured yet.

Meanwhile MultiChoice is in the process of installing a "boosted HD PVR panel" of 170 households into South Africa's TV universe also getting the TVM5 series meter with UNITAM technology. Whilst it won't affect TV audience measurement in terms of  ratings, it will help to provide a much clearer picture in future of what exactly on DStv subscribers are watching, and to measure time-shifted viewing more accurately.

Nine additional HD PVR households out of the to be installed 170 have already been added, with about 20 to 25 which will be done per week.  About 100 will have been installed by the start of the 2012 Olympic Games by the end of July.

Craig Johnson warned that the upcoming 2012 Olympic Games to be broadcast on multiple SuperSport TV channels as well as SABC2 from the end of July and in August will lead to viewership disruption as broadcasters alter their TV schedule and viewers alter their viewing patterns.

BREAKING. VOSDAL is finally coming to the South African television industry. What you say? Get ready for Viewing-on-same-day-as-live ratings.

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I can reveal that VOSDAL is coming soon to the South African television industry for the very first time. No. Not a third type of alien in the new drama series Falling Skies, or the annual spring day The Wombles decide to peek out their burrow. Say hello to Viewing-on-same-day-as-live (VOSDAL) television ratings for South Africa.

The South African Advertising Research Foundation (Saarf), custodian of the TAMS system that measures television viewing and audience ratings in South Africa, says that it's planning to introduce VOSDAL as well as a detailed, individual, live+7 day viewership rating measurement system for PVRs when it introduces its time-shifted viewership measurement with the next TV universe update, probably sometime in early 2012.

Saarf has decided to remove PVR households for now, temporarily, from the new TV universe for South African television viewership that will come into effect on 1 August. That decision will lead to a sudden, unexpected decrease in the perceived viewership of some TV channels (because the PVR households are no longer considered towards the viewing total). Saarf promises that this ''missing'' or invisible viewership will however be added back in later with more robust, separate viewership information.

With this new set of PVR household viewership information, ad buyers, media planners, marketing strategists and TV executives will be able to get a detailed and very clear breakdown - for the first time ever - of what specific TV watching of what specific shows happens delayed but still on the same day as broadcast, as well as for each of the 7 consecutive days after a broadcast day.

Saarf plans to make a consolidated file available that will contain ''live+7 day'' PVR information. It will be similar to the live+7 DVR rating the American TV industry has been using for the past few years to get a clearer picture of how many additional viewers really watched a specific show or channel.

The industry will be able to ''customize'' and select what PVR viewership they deem of importance. Ad buyers or media agencies might want to focus on only ''live+VODAL'' - how many viewers saw a show live, plus recorded it but still watched it on that same day. Or you might decide ''live+2'' - viewers who watched a show live as well as those who recorded it and watched it within two days - are still significant enough to count towards your viewership total.

Example: Let's say Idols on M-Net at 17:30 on Sunday attracts a viewership of 950 000 people.
PVR viewership is going to give you a VOSDAL rating of 20 000, meaning that a further 20 000 people watched Idols not at 17:30 but still on the Sunday, bringing the total Idols viewership to actually 970 000.
Then you can add Idols live+1 that might now give you an additional 14 000 viewers who watched the show they've recorded on their PVR on Monday, bringing the total to 984 000.
As you add live+2, live+3, live+4 and so on, the number of viewers on these later days go down as less and less people actually watch what they've PVRed. But it does still make a difference to the overall total number of people who've watched.

ALSO READ: DStv viewership to go down 9% on average from August as PVR viewership, that has become ''significant'', gets temporarily removed.
ALSO READ: TopTV viewership numbers for the pay TV service is coming, but audience ratings won't be available for individual channels.
ALSO READ: PVR viewership removed from TAMS from August; viewership of M-Net, kykNET, SuperSport will decline.