by Richard Lord (@rlord182) With more of the economy open and more people back at work in June 2020, we saw even further declines in television audiences and time spent viewing. It seemed that the ‘days of plenty’ that the TV broadcasters had experienced were now a thing of the past, and the numbers seemed to have returned to pre-covid-19 levels.
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Dashboard
As we saw daily time spent viewing dropping, there was also a correlating drop in audiences as well… and quite a big drop, too. Let’s dig a little deeper…
Top 10: Main market
LSM 4–7 top 10 shows for Jun 2020 |
Channel |
Audience |
| Uzalo | SABC 1 | 9 590 008 |
| Generations: The Legacy | SABC 1 | 8 473 225 |
| Skeem Saam | SABC 1 | 8 128 294 |
| Scandal | e.tv | 5 313 093 |
| isiZulu News | SABC 1 | 5 220 489 |
| isiXhosa News | SABC 1 | 4 860 113 |
| S’gud S’naysi | SABC 1 | 4 595 378 |
| Nyan Nyan | SABC 1 | 4 586 425 |
| Rhythm City | e.tv | 4 362 764 |
| Makoti | SABC 1 | 4 332 547 |
Three observations: SABC 1 remained dominant; e.tv regained some lost ground; and the nation’s obsession with news content began abating.
- SABC 1 dominance: Eight of the top 10 shows were on SABC 1. There wasn’t a single SABC 2, SABC 3, or DStv programme to be found in the top 10.
- e.tv regaining lost ground: Scandal in April dropped from its usual fourth place spot down to sixth. It recovered in June. The other firm favourite, Rhythm City, had dropped out of the top 10 but was is now back.
- News: The isiZulu and isiXhosa News bulletins on SABC 1 had climbed up to position four and five in April and May and had seen audience spikes of 30-40%. In June, they were back to their pre-pandemic levels.
But the biggest thing that the numbers have shown us — and we saw this in the daily time spent viewing data, too — is that, since people were back at work under level 3 restrictions, they didn’t have the time to watch TV like they had in the previous three months, and there was a big drop in audiences. Let’s consider the top 3…
Mar 2020 |
Apr 2020 |
May 2020 |
Jun 2020 |
% diff Jun on May |
|
| Uzalo | 9 486 146 | 11 382 535 | 11 302 538 | 9 590 008 | -15% |
| Generations | 7 829 601 | 9 671 777 | 9 148 977 | 8 473 225 | -7% |
| Skeem Saam | 5 784 067 | 8 788 444 | 8 914 540 | 8 128 294 | -9% |
The average audience of the top 10 show in June was 5.9m viewers. The average of the top 10 in May was 6.6m. That’s an average 10% decrease in audience across the top 10 in just one month, since the introduction of level 3 restrictions at the beginning of June.
Top 10: High-income
But let’s not forget about the high-income earners. The last few months saw a shakeup among the top end. We saw the SABC 3 broadcast of the movie Contagion take the top spot in April; we saw the president’s various addresses sitting firmly in the top 10; and we saw e.tv programming fall out of the top 10 while local content on Mzansi Magic challenged SABC 1’s dominance.
But June brought with it a similar mix of programming, broadcasters and audiences that we saw back in March, before the major impact of covid-19 made itself felt.
LSM 8–10 top 10 shows for Jun 2020 |
Channel |
Audience |
| Uzalo | SABC 1 | 1 268 365 |
| Skeem Saam | SABC 1 | 1 231 012 |
| Generations | SABC 1 | 932 049 |
| The Queen | Mzansi Magic | 791 494 |
| San Andreas (movie) | e.tv | 771 299 |
| Scandal | e.tv | 732 612 |
| isiZulu News | SABC 1 | 702 895 |
| Gomora | Mzansi Magic | 645 500 |
| isiXhosa News | SABC 1 | 630 666 |
| Nyan Nyan | SABC 1 | 581 265 |
e.tv was back with two programmes in the top 10. Mzansi Magic, which had four programmes in the top 10 in April, dropped to two, and SABC 1 rounded out the remaining six programmes. This, once again, highlights the misconception that many marketers have about what TV content the top end is actually consuming. We see very little DStv in the top 10, and no M-Net whatsoever. It’s very evident that high income consumers love local content.
We saw an equally large decrease in audiences as we saw among the main market, as evidenced below:
May 2020 |
Jun 2020 |
% diff Jun on May |
|
| Uzalo | 1 511 289 | 1 268 365 | -16% |
| Generations | 1 359 156 | 1 231 012 | -9% |
| Skeem Saam | 1 087 749 | 932 049 | -14% |
It’ll be interesting to see what happens in July with the reintroduction of an overnight curfew (and the alcohol ban).
See also
- Columns | Watched – Richard Lord
- SA TV Ratings: Jun 2020 primetime — DStv, e.tv, SABC 1, SABC 2 & SABC 3
- #OpenForBusiness — Radar
- #CoronavirusSA — Radar
- #CoronavirusSA – Special Section
Richard Lord (@rlord182) is media and operations director at Meta Media, South Africa’s newest media agency and part of the IPG global network and Nahana Communications Group of specialist agencies. With over 20 years’ experience in the media industry and having worked for FCB, UM in London, and The MediaShop, he’s spent most of his career with IPG. Richard contributes the monthly “Watched” column, which analyses monthly TV audience viewership figures in South Africa, to MarkLives.com.
This MarkLives #CoronavirusSA special section contains coverage of how the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, and its resultant disease, covid-19, is affecting the advertising, marketing and related industries in South Africa and other parts of Africa, and how we are responding. Updates may be sent to us via our contact form or the email address published on our Contact Us page. Opinion pieces/guest columns must be exclusive.
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