These are the primetime adult television viewing figures for January 2020:
If you can't see the listing below, then click this link to access them in a document instead:
Top Shows on TV: January 2020
Special notes:
When Eskom takes everything, including our favourite shows
South Africa's rolling blackouts hit the country's top shows hard in January, with the Big Four losing a terrible total of 3.5 million viewers between them since November.
Here's an overview of the difference in the numbers for their most popular episodes between
November 2019 (before the critical meltdown of Stage 6) and the rolling blackouts of January 2020:
| Show |
Nov 2019 Viewership |
Nov 2019
Audience Share |
Jan 2020 Viewership |
Jan 2020
Audience Share |
Decline |
Uzalo
(20h30) |
10,072,999 |
67.8 |
9,308,207 |
69.1 |
764,792 |
Generations
(20h00) |
8,994,656 |
64 |
7 993 895 |
62.6 |
1,000,761 |
Skeem Saam
(18h30) |
6,893,240 |
55.5 |
5,894,821 |
56 |
998,419 |
Scandal!
(19h30) |
5,643,731 |
40.3 |
4,829,111 |
41.3 |
814,620 |
| |
|
|
|
|
3,578,592 |
Their numbers were lower in December too but this was also due to the festive season so the truly meaningful plunge is in January because there were no festive distractions - there was nothing festive about it!
The only explanation for these numbers is load shedding because each show's Audience Share remained stable between November and January.
This means that the shows didn't lose viewers to other shows or channels but rather the overall number of people watching TV at that time dropped substantially and resulted in the shows bleeding viewers.
The big damage happened to the four shows that always have the biggest viewership while other early evening soapies (e.g. Rhythm City, Isidingo and 7de Laan) were also down.
Interesting to note is that shows at 21h00 and later (The Queen and Imbewu) maintained their numbers for their most popular episode which suggests that even when the lights were on, people used the earlier part of their evenings to organise their lives around the chaos of load shedding.
Also important to note: These numbers only reflect the most popular episodes for each show during the month and not their average viewership for the month.
This means that load shedding very probably had an even bigger overall impact on shows than presented here because the Broadcast Research Council's numbers don't give an indication of what happened each night of the week.
Lithapo
Lithapo got off to healthy start at 21h30 on SABC2 despite the troubles. It's most popular episode aired in its debut week reaching 1,719,199 viewers, almost the exact same number as Giyani's premiere week
when it reached 1,792,527.
Will it rise, fall or remain the same?
If you can't see the documents, here's an overview of the Top 5 shows per channel:
SABC1
| Show |
Viewers |
| Uzalo |
9,308,207 |
| Generations: The Legacy |
7,993,895 |
| Skeem Saam |
5,894,821 |
| Xhosa News |
3,718,085 |
| Zulu News |
3,598,304
|
SABC2
| Show |
Viewers |
| Muvhango |
4,675,183 |
| Live Lotto Draw |
2,517,927 |
| 7De Laan |
1,821,380 |
| Mopheme |
1,818,097 |
| Lithapo |
1,719,199
|
SABC3
| Show |
Viewers |
| Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen |
1,014,162 |
| Transformers:Age of Extinction |
898,528 |
| Isidingo:the Need |
870,482 |
| Test Match Cricket:South Africa vs Engla |
681,326 |
| Transformers:the Movie |
620,294 |
e.tv
| Show |
Viewers |
| Scandal |
4,829,111 |
| Mad Buddies |
4,107,239 |
| Imbewu: the Seed |
4,104,952 |
| The Karate Kid |
3,508,898 |
| Rhythm City |
3,339,647 |
DStv
| Show |
Viewers |
| The Queen |
1,226,297 |
| Our Perfect Wedding |
867,341 |
| Isibaya |
707,242 |
| The Omen |
701,480 |
| Date My Family |
627,549
|
For an explanation of the TAMS, please see: The TAMS ratings explained