Media ShopTalk:   w/c 17 May 2010

How many times have you been asked, or perhaps you’ve asked the questions – “So who actually watches TV?”, “who watches which TV station?” and “if you have a decoder do you watch terrestrial channels through the decoder?” We all know that TV reaches more than 85% of the total AMPS universe in the past 7 days or 4 week period, and we know that each station caters for specific target audiences with their programme offering.  e.g. SABC 1 aired predominantly local content, SABC 2 catered for the Afrikaans market and M-Net/DSTV catered for the top LSM groups. With the launch of TopTV, the change of program line-ups (Afrikaans programmes are being screened on SABC 3) and a number of other factors, it’s now not that easy to segment the TV stations. Having analysed a year’s worth of viewing data, the below will hopefully assist us in understanding the TV arena in its current state. Here are the facts:

· There are over 31 million analogue TV viewers in South Africa and only 5.6 million digital viewers.

· Between 6 – 10% of all digital homes watch analogue TV stations.

· We surmise that with the cheaper Top TV option (and DStv’s new offerings), fewer viewers will watch SABC and ETV through analogue channels – they will probably watch these channels through their decoders.

· Depending on the programme, up to 14% of the viewership of programmes is done via the decoder.

· The majority of SABC and ETV programmes are viewed via analogue The most important point of differentiation when looking at viewers is how you define your audience.

Are you looking to reach analogue viewers or digital viewers?   The overall universe sizes are dramatically different: remember over 31 million analogue viewers and only 5.6 million digital viewers.   So when you get your DSTV schedule and the majority of spots reflect a big round zero rating – don’t be surprised!!   And if you get a schedule based on the digital universe and you have a spot in Generations and the ratings are less than half – you shouldn’t be surprised either.   Why? Let’s take a look at a couple of demographic comparisons.  This information has been sourced using Arianna and was run over a 12 month period:  April 2009 – March 2010.  

Analogue Universe:  31,864,715   Digital Universe:  5,645,898

Gender profile

Gender profile

Age profile

Age profile

Ethnic Group

Ethnic Group

LSM Group

LSM Group

By Province

By Province

By Target Audience

By Target Audience

And in closing, we thought we would share with you all, our new Johannesburg office “welcome”  during the World Cup Soccer!

We should never take it for granted that we have a good understanding of who is watching which TV station and how they are watching.   You must always remember that decoder viewers are very different to analogue viewers!  

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Until next week!
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