Jacquie Golding-Duffy
TELEVISION news has an average of six Audience Ratings (ARs) and just manages to slip into the All Media and Product Survey (AMPS) figures of the top 10 television programmes on the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) channels.
But six ARs, according to media directors from local advertising agencies, is “just not good enough” for what should be the flagship programmes of SABC.
Despite poor ARs, advertisers are still encouraging clients to buy air time as an advertising spot around the news is regarded as “prime”.
Lindsay Smithers-FCB media director Tony Banahan says the ratings are “terrible” but the News on SABC is “one of the few programmes that the top end of the market watches.
“The market you are trying to reach is often people with disposable income and they are news and current affairs addicts,” he says, adding that the news is the best the SABC has to offer.
“In the old days it would have been in the region of 20 ARs and the ratings we are now getting for the news are not half as good.”
The reasons for this are twofold: people are tired of being faced with bad news and badly presented news and the broadcast area of SABC 3 is limited, reaching a small target audience.
Saatchi & Saatchi group media director Julie Dunstan says to monitor the ARs of adults across all channels is “not a true reflection” of the penetration of adverts.
Fragmentation in the market and a drop in ARs was expected following the relaunch of the new national public broadcaster, she says. And advertising around news bulletins depends largely on which target market one was aiming to reach.
“With all the bulletins in vernacular languages, you can plan your target market carefully,” she says.
Other comments by media directors on the ratings received by news among adults included: “Appalling ratings but time will tell if it`ll improve”, “Viewers may watch the news but it is mainly for the headlines as excerpts are far too long” and “The ratings will slowly improve as audiences become accustomed to the changes which have happened and still are happening at the SABC.”
Two weeks ago (November 11 to 17), the ARs for the news on SABC 3 were about seven, the same as the ARs for local soapie Egoli on M- Net, which also rated between seven and 7,5.
The highest ratings for that same week went to local comedy Going Up on SABC 1 on Wednesdays, reaching 14,6ARs.
A close second was another locally produced comedy, Suburban Bliss on SABC 2 on Mondays, which topped 13,2 ARs.
The top 10 SABC programmes for children highlighted some interesting factors. The news on SABC 1, which is mainly in Xhosa and Zulu on Tuesdays and Fridays respectively, had high ARs among children – higher than adult viewers in the same language group.
Xhosa news had 15,3 children’s ARs, while Zulu news had 14,2 ARs.
Suburban Bliss on SABC 2 (Mondays) and Touched by an Angel on SABC 3 (Tuesdays) were favourites among children, reaching 21,2 and 8,1 ARs respectively.
Even when studying the top 10 programmes of the English and Afrikaans-speaking adults, news only reached about eight ARs.
Furthermore, average viewing time was only two hours per week, whether they were English, Afrikaans or Nguni/Sotho-speaking audiences.
Media directors argue that television programming is no longer compelling viewing and news bulletins are no exception.