Jacquie Golding-Duffy
Although the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) has increased its overall viewership on two of its three channels by a half-a-million viewers, the average daily time spent in front of the television has dropped since the relaunch.
SABC 2 (the former TV1) is the only channel that dropped in overall viewership. It went from 7,5-million viewers before the launch to 6,6-million viewers after the launch.
The channel has, however, not only lost viewers overall, but the time spent on average by viewers actually watching television has also dropped. Viewers of TV1 used to watch 59 minutes of television, while the new SABC 2 has audiences who only watch for an average of 40 minutes per day.
SABC media liaison co-ordinator for television Don Seokane says the drop experienced by SABC 2 reflects the movement by predominantly English- and Afrikaans-speaking viewers who are not catered for by the channel and who channel hop or move to SABC 3.
“We have to consider that SABC2 carries programming predominantly in Sotho languages, some in Afrikaans and in prime time English,” Seokane said. He adds that the loss at SABC 2 has resulted in an increase on SABC 3 and that in actual fact, the corporation has not, in real terms, suffered any major drop in viewership.
SABC 1 (the former CCV) and SABC 3 (the former NNTV) have increased audiences — CCV from 6,9-million to 7,5-million on SABC1 and NNTV from 3,8-million viewers to 4,6-million. While SABC 3 increased its viewership, it was not on a large scale, as the channel’s transmission footprint covers only 56% of the country.
Although the SABC says it has experienced growth in terms of viewership and expected a “steady growth as people become more familiar with the programmes”, television’s average time of daily viewing has dropped.
According to All Media and Products Survey Meters by the South African Advertising Research Foundation, viewers watched on average 28 minutes of CCV, now they watch only 20 minutes of SABC 1. SABC 3 has seen an increase in the amount of time that people watch television, from an average of four minutes, to 16 minutes.
SABC’s news bulletins are experiencing a stabilisation period. The Afrikaans news bulletin on SABC 2 at 8.30pm on Fridays has seen a downward trend, but the SABC says this shift “has been halted” and an “improvement” of 10 Audience Rating (AR) was recorded for March 11 to 17, from a high of 19 AR before the launch.
SABC says audience ratings cannot be compared on a scale before and after the launch as the channels’ focus and viewer target has changed.