by Thinus Ferreira

The result of a badly-produced season of Big Brother Mzansi inflicted further TV ratings damage for Mzansi Magic (DStv 161) on Sunday nights during March with the show that lost an eye-popping 25% of its viewership since its debut in February – which was already lower than Idols.

Elsewhere in the TV ratings race during March 2022, the ratings deflation of SABC2 continued, SABC3 brought in a slightly improved performance helped by the BBC’s The Perfect Planet on Sunday evenings, while e.tv had a wedding glow.

March 2022’s TV ratings had SABC1’s Uzalo (7 million) and Generations (5.69 million), as well as e.tv’s Scandal (4.89 million) and House of Zwide (4.36 million) retain their top four positions as South Africa’s most-watched TV shows during the month.

On SABC1 Skeem Saam (up from 3.82 to 4.04 million) had slightly more viewers in March, with both the Xhosa TV news (2.64 million) and the Zulu TV news (2.59 million) remaining very strong as the two most-watched TV news bulletins in the country. 

The Siswati/Ndebele TV news also picked up viewers from 1.45 in February to 1.56 million.

The latest season of Nyan’ Nyan’ surged from 1.72 to 2.2 million viewers on SABC1, while Selimathunzi climbed from 1.62 million to 1.87 million viewers in March. 

The reality show, 13 Weeks to Find Mr Right is on a roll and will quite likely see another season: it picked up viewers from 1.55 in February to 1.78 million viewers in March.

SABC2 deflation

SABC2’s ratings deflation problem continues. 

While Muvhango on SABC2 remained ever so slightly up at 3 309 806 viewers at most during March from February’s 3 300 031 as the channel’s most-watched show, the ratings of the rest of SABC2’s schedule continue to weaken month by month.

In March, the pieces of programming on SABC2 that managed to lure more than 1 million viewers fell from five to just three. Besides Muvhango, only the Setswana/Sepedi TV news at 1 300 906 and Giyani at 1 026 424 lured more than a million eyeballs. 

In February the 20th most-watched show on SABC2 (the film Despicable Me) still had 440 663 viewers. In March it was further down to 379 094 viewers (for a Generations repeat). Quite worrying is that the bulk of SABC2’s ratings is starting to look like SABC3 a few years ago.

On the good side is the morning show Morning Live holding steady and over-performing at 528 564 viewers on SABC2 on weekday mornings. Hlala Kwabafileyo was up from 822 831 to 873 471 viewers. The Afrikaans soap 7de Laan was slightly up in March from 824 566 to 897 861 viewers.

A Perfect Planet helps S3

SABC3’s ratings performance looked slightly better with both its top and bottom end of 20 highest-rated shows on the channel showing an improvement.

The film The Hate U Give lured the most viewers during March to S3 with 576 562 viewers, compared to February’s top of a repeat episode of The Estate at 490 709.

While The Insider SA was February’s 20th most-watched show on the channel at 229 714 viewers, SABC3 improved that ratings position with March’s 20th place holder on SABC3 which was an episode of the BBC’s The Perfect Planet attracting 317 634 viewers.

The Perfect Planet in fact came to SABC3 rescue during the month with four episodes from the series on Sunday nights that helped to boost the channel’s ratings and all making its list of most-watched shows for the month: “Oceans” with 475 695 viewers, “Weather” with 407 721, “Volcano” with 336 823, and “The Sun” on 13 March with 317 634 viewers. 

Variety-reality show The Masked Singer is doing okay-ish with 468 033 viewers given the channel’s challenges. An original episode of the second season of local telenovela The Estate lured 352 741 viewers at most  – up from February’s highest of 296 682.

Interesting to note: More viewers watch The Estate episodes as an omnibus on Saturdays than during the tough 19:00 weekday timeslot. In March The Estate omnibus pulled 464 564 viewers on Saturday.

e.tv mixing and wedding matching

Free-to-air commercial channel e.tv continues to have the best mix in local and international both rating well with March that was no exception. 

Besides Scandal! and House of Zwide atop its ratings leaderboard, Imbewu turned in a slightly down but still fine third place with 3.44 million (down from February’s 3.88 million), with Durban Gen surging from 2.16 to 2.51 million viewers during March.

Droves of viewers again watched Leon Schuster’s Mr Bones (3.26 million) as the 4th most-watched content of the month on e.tv, with the channel’s etv News bulletin at 20:00 at 1.96 million viewers that remains a strong ratings draw.

Pay-TV content chosen wisely, scheduled correctly and getting a public television window can still draw sizeable audiences with M-Net’s Our Perfect Wedding that was on Mzansi Magic getting a great ratings reception on e.tv with 1.5 million viewers.

It’s proof that pay-TV content windowed on free TV can work for all – leading to ancillary revenue for pay-TV operators through additional programme sales, and new ratings for free-to-air channels in turn making hay through ad income from pulling in new viewers who didn’t watch the content before on pay-TV.

e.tv’s new adult telenovela The Black Door got great sampling during March as well: An astounding 2.77 million viewers watched the preview filler on 28 March.

Big Brother Mzansi drags

In March, MultiChoice and Mzansi Magic continued to pay the price for the problems with a lacklustre Big Brother Mzansi that was marred with shoddy production values with more and more viewers who tuned out from the Sunday night live shows.  

Where Big Brother Mzansi started with 529 041 viewers in January (already lower than Idols SA), its drop in February to 487 770 continued in March to 396 192 viewers at most. That’s a loss of 25% from the start of the revived show to March. It will be interesting to see if Big Brother Mzansi could muster a rating turn-around for its finale on 3 April.

It’s striking that Mzansi Magic has now lost over 600 000 DStv subscribers on Sunday evenings compared to a year ago before the last season of Idols experienced a sudden and unprecedented ratings implosion.

Elsewhere on MultiChoice’s platform during March, Gomora at 1 063 440 was the top-rated show on DStv for the month, followed by an episode of The Queen at 814 637 viewers. The River was third with 707 169, and then Diep City with 655 496 subscribers watching.

Umndeni on Moja Love (DStv 157) climbed from 482 880 to 514 116 viewers in March.