by Inge Hansen (@mecnotabene) If you have ever stared at a screen with horrified fascination, you are in the same boat as many viewers who have been drawn into watching ‘car-crash TV’. This popular occurrence is loosely defined by the Urban Dictionary as “any TV program that, like a recent car crash in the street, you know you shouldn’t watch, you know you’ll regret looking, but you just can’t help yourself!”
In our current TV landscape, this relates largely to real-life drama and reality TV shows that have you gasping one moment and cringing at the next; think live-singing auditions by the tone-deaf. However, at the same time, it appears that local audiences are also drawn to stories of inspiration, happiness and love — with a small dollop of voyeurism and family drama thrown in. This is evident on Sunday evenings as the Twitterverse ignites in conversations, exclamations and approving comments regarding the latest episode of Our Perfect Wedding.
Logical
Weddings are big business in South Africa but, with prohibitive costs making a dream wedding a reality for few, it seems logical that this would be a popular show for many. According to Statistics South Africa, nearly 160 000 marriages were registered in SA in 2013. Of these, the majority of the civil unions were conducted by a home-affairs official and not under an arch of roses at a dream location, followed by the release of doves during the vows. Who can afford that when the price of bread has risen by 69% in the past five years?
The show, therefore, has become a firm Sunday night drawcard for the channel, have been initially broadcast on Mzansi Wethu, and moving to the now popular Mzansi Magic from Season 3 [check out our weekly SA TV Ratings column — ed-at-large]. With viewership for adults having increased from 100 000–150 000 viewers per episode in 2013 to over 1m viewers (TAMS average data) in 2015, Our Perfect Wedding is steadily increasing its audience base. Being active in the social space also helps to highlight key moments and create engagement, with the show having a Facebook following of over 109 400 fans and over 11 200 followers on Twitter.
Unsurprisingly, the viewership is weighted to females due to the nature of the content, and attracts a primarily black audience at over 95% on average. In terms of age breakdown,s there is a relatively even split between the age groups of 15–24, 25–34 and 35–49 years of age, although also having some exposure to younger ages, most likely due to its early timeslot and family viewing habits. As the show is broadcast on DStv, it’s not surprising that the majority of viewing comes from the grouping of LSM 6–9, with a much smaller portion of LSM 10 tuning in at 2.70%.
New local production
Capitalising on the success of Our Perfect Wedding and similar well-known international shows such as Don’t Tell the Bride and Say Yes to the Dress will be new local production Four Weddings South Africa. Starting on Lifetime (channel 131 on DStv) on 16 October 2015. The reality show will follow four brides per episode, who will be competing against each other for the best wedding in order to win a dream honeymoon. Don’t expect anything plain and overly traditional, however, as the show is set to feature everything from a wedding in a shopping mall to naked brides and a “Boerekos”-themed meal at the reception.
What with the amount of negativity that consumers are bombarded with in the media that they consume, it’s no wonder that they would be drawn to programming that features positive (and local) real-life stories. After all, isn’t that what television is really about? The creation of entertaining moments that hit close to home, allowing a brief escape from the worries of everyday life.
References:
- M&G: 10 things about marriage in South Africa
- TV with Thinus: Naked brides! Biker brides! A Xhosa-Swazi-Tswana-Sotho-fusion wedding! Four Weddings South Africa on Lifetime to feature outrageous weddings.
- Fin24: Food prices up 49% in 5 years
Following two years at Media24 scrubbing for insights within the magazine division, Inge Hansen joined Nota Bene as an A&I analyst in March 2013. Working across multiple clients, including FMCG, alcohol and petroleum, she has the luxury of working with teams to develop robust insights that drive strategy while keeping abreast of media trends the world over. Inge loves having her pulse on the media landscape but far prefers raising her pulse mountain-biking on weekends. She contributes Thinking TV, a monthly analysis of South African TV viewership figures, to MarkLives. Follow @mecnotabene for regular media updates.
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