by Richard Lord (@rlord182) With a slow return to economic activity in South Africa, we’re seeing some of the television-viewing trends that we’ve been tracking over the last few months start to shift downwards.

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In the second half of March 2020 and all through April, because people were sitting at home for much of that, we saw a massive spike in the amount of time people were spending sitting in front of the TV. Last month in May, when South Africa went to level 4 lockdown and some people started returning to work, we started to see a decline in the numbers.

Using Nielsen’s iPort tool, the average daily minutes being viewed by South Africans started to decrease as soon as level 4 kicked in. There was an 8.6% decrease in time spent viewing in the four weeks after the nation went to level 4. With level 3 now in effect and even more people having potentially gone back to work, it will be interesting to see what the effect on TV viewership patterns will be next month!

Along with the decline in average time spent viewing, audience figures have been dropping off slightly, too. So, let’s have a look at the top 10 shows for May and see what the effects of level 4 had on audiences.

Top 10: Main market

First, the main market…

Unsurprisingly, the top three programmes haven’t changed… and, to be honest, I think it’ll take something much bigger than covid-19 to shift them off the top of the table. But what we’re seeing, and this is true of most of the programmes in the top 10, is a decrease in average audiences vs April. When people were homebound, we saw a big uptick in audience. Now that the lockdown is easing, so, too, are the viewers…

We’re seeing this trend in the news as well, which has been increasing in viewership month on month since February. It seems, though, that news fatigue is finally setting in and far fewer people tuned in to watch the news on Sabc during May. We also saw isiXhosa News, after a few months of steadily moving up the table, dropping down from no. 5 to no. 6, below e.tv’s Scandal.

Top 10: High-income

But what’s happening with the high-income earners?

Last month, we saw a major change at the top of the table for high-income earners, with the movie Contagion on SABC 3 taking the no. 1 spot. This was short-lived, however, and once again we see Uzalo, Skeem Saam, and Generations back in their familiar positions, reminding us anew that what happens in Sandton isn’t indicative of what happens in the rest of South Africa, and that we can’t let our personal biases and viewership habits dictate our media-buying selections. Anyone who still believes that people in LSM 8–10 only watch Carte Blanche are sorely mistaken.

One the one hand, the good news for e.tv is that Scandal’s moved back up the table from no. 10 in April to no. 6 in May. This climb in position is also accompanied by an increase in audience of almost 5%! However, e.tv still only has one show in the top 10, compared to four programmes back in the beginning of the year.

Mzansi Magic, on the other hand, is entrenching its position as a force in the upper LSMs, matching SABC 1 with four top 10 programmes in May. This is up from three in April, and just two back in January. DStv is clearly getting something right with its storylines!

Out of interest, the best-performing programme on M-Net in May was the action-thriller starring Jean Reno, Cold Blood Legacy, which attracted 251 863 viewers — less than half of Mzansi Magic’s Our Perfect Wedding South Africa, with 651 879 viewers. Carte Blanche, a firm favourite of marketing directors across SA, attracted an average audience of just 190 174 viewers.

Given that last month saw the SABC 3 movie, Contagion, at the top of the list with 1.8m viewers, what was the best-performing programme on SABC 3 in May? It was a nature documentary series called Spy in the Wild and it attracted just 182 275, good enough for a ranking of 105. If there were ever an argument for good, relevant content being able to attract big audiences, this is it!

What will happen in June now that SA has moved to level 3? Only time will tell.

See also

• SA TV Ratings: May 2020 primetime — DStv, e.tv, SABC 1, SABC 2 & SABC 3
• Columns | Watched – Richard Lord
• #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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