According to media reports, the South African television and the broadcasting industry will face the worst TV ratings in 2022.
The broadcasting industry was already fighting to keep its head above water; with millions of TV households getting cut off from analogue to digital terrestrial television, TV ratings continue to drop because of Eskom’s, South Africa’s electricity supplier, debilitating electricity blackouts.
Eskom’s load-shedding has had an impact on South Africa’s Television Audience Measurement Survey (TAMS) system, with Eskom’s continuous power outages wiping millions of viewers and TV households from the measurement grid whenever Eskom’s power utility is forced to start stages of unplanned power cuts in the country.
The Broadcast Research Council of South Africa (BRCSA), together with Nielsen SA, will monitor the TV rating damages caused by Eskom’s load-shedding.
Broadcasters in the country are also seeing viewers dropping in government’s push to switch off analogue Sentech signals – from pay-TV operator’s MultiChoice’s DStv and StarSat, to the SABC and eMedia’s e.TV.
Furthermore, the free to air broadcaster, eMedia, recently took the Minister of Communication, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, to court over her suddenly rushed analogue signals switch-off schedule.
On the other hand, the public broadcaster’s (SABC) TV ratings continued to decline month after month since Sentech began switching off analogue signals province after province, as well as decreases in viewership, affecting advertising revenue.
Pay-TV broadcasters are also facing the worst TV ratings in 2022, as Eskom continues to rollout ‘load-shedding’.
