“If TV is a vast wasteland, soap operas are thought to be the least nourishing spot in the desert,” wrote Tania Modleski, a renowned professor of popular culture. Well, tell that to the average South African! For as long as I can remember, regardless of what was on the box, and how much choice the viewer had, or any demographic one cared to look at, South Africans manage to spend around 3½ hours a day watching television. This fact has never ceased to amaze me, as I always see it in the context of the rest of one’s life. What it says to me is that if one works for 8 hours a day, sleeps 8 hours, and commutes for an hour, then for 50% of the rest of your life you’re watching TV. That’s really mind-boggling—
But then given the stresses of life, I suppose escapism isn’t a bad way of filling half one’s free time. The scary thing is not that South Africans spend the 3½ hours a day in front of the box, it’s what they end up watching that makes one’s jaw drop.
And again, just to reassure, these habits we’re about to discuss are just that – habits. Week in, week out, the pattern remains the same. Simply put, the average South African is absolutely besotted with soaps. SABC 1,2,3, M-Net – all the best-rated shows are soaps. Local, international, English, Afrikaans, or vernacular, soaps rule. Just to give you a snapshot, we look at the individual stations, based on viewership ex-SAARF for the week of March 1, 2004 – the week in which the Oscars was broadcast.
So, if we look at adult viewers, we find SABC 1 reigns supreme. Almost 1 in 5 adult South Africans were watching Generations on Wednesday. And Generations and The Bold and the Beautiful were between them amongst the 7 most viewed shows of the week – across all stations.
But the power of the soaps – described once as a show “in which nothing happens” in case one has to go to the hairdresser or something equally important – is not restricted to SABC 1.
On SABC 2 the top 3 shows of the week are soaps, Muvhango and 7de Laan, on SABC 3 Isidingo fills the top 5 slots, and Egoli – Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday – attracted the biggest audience to M-Net. Only e.tv at this stage doesn’t appear to have cracked an audience spinner in the soap category. Backstage just doesn’t feature in its top 10 programmes. But one has to believe that there’s no way that this will be accepted by e.tv programming. Clearly, with soaps scheduled in the early evening, they are the ‘hook’ to holding audience for the night. It is crucial therefore in the South African TV battle to have an audience spinner – and 99% likely it has to be a soap – between 18h00 and 19h00. e.tv doesn’t – but betcha before the end of the year it will be having a full-on go at acquiring a mega-soap to flight early in the evening.
And perhaps the scariest thought is that kids are following the trend. Yep, Isidingo, Generations and The Bold and the Beautiful are there in all their glory, together with the wrestling shows. The only other show that climbs onto this “hit parade” is the strangely named Dragonballz on SABC 2 (as to the contents, I leave that to your imagination).
Is there any life after the soaps? Well, very little if one takes into account that the Stormers vs Hurricans Super 12 attracted a bigger audience than the Academy Awards (Charlene et al). Then factor in that two of the top four shows on e.tv were wrestling, and one has unfortunately got to believe that the average South African is seriously undemanding when it comes to TV.
Harry Herber is group managing director of The MediaShop