Britta Reid writes on TheMediaOnline.co.za that TV viewership figures took a heavy beating in early December ad the first week of load shedding started to bite South Afirca. She says as an example that Muvhango, which is broadcast on SABC2 on a Friday night, lost some 32.3% of its Sotho speaking adult audience, while SABC1’s The X-Factor on the Saturday lost some 22.1% of its Nguni speaking audience. OnSABC3, the Xtra Factor on Friday shed 25.8% of its English speaking audience and the Friday 1900 Nuus shed some 29.7% of its Afrikaans adult audience.
Surely it’s not going to be long before media advertising agencies request compensation for these audience losses. Should this lead to legal battles it could become interesting and the only people that will really make money out of all of this will off course be the legal eagles who will take center stage in all of this.
Meanwhile advertisers are being sold short and viewers suffer as well.
Read writes that agencies will be returning from their Christmas breaks with the realisation that the initial rounds of load shedding has hat them hard and the reality that they need to stabilize their television campaign performances. “With no quick fix for the Eskom debacle, this situation is likely to persist through 2015 making it a challenging year for the television broadcasters,” she says.
