SABC3's expensive new hospital drama series,
Jozi-H, had a less-than-flattering premiere on Thursday 26 April, managing an average viewership of just 849,100 viewers and a 12% audience share.
That was only good enough for third place out of the four free-to-air channels competing in its 20h30 timeslot. It was the 9th most-watched show on SABC3 in Week 17.
It was beaten by
Zola 7 on SABC1 and the movie Just Married on e.tv, although it did manage to edge out the Sotho/Tswana/Sepedi news on SABC2 - but only just.
For a series with so much hype and a budget of R100-million (1-million Canadian dollars per episode) you'd expect it to be able to at least mount a challenge to a four-year-old, crappy, critically-abhorred movie starring
Ashton Kutcher.
Apparently not.
While nobody that we're aware of has outright trashed the show, and indeed many positive comments have been made about the expensive look and feel of it (which you'd expect for a show with such a huge budget), nobody has exactly burst a vein enthusing about it either.
However - criticism of a show can only come after it has premiered, so the quality of the show couldn't have had an impact on the unimpressive premiere figures.
Which leaves marketing. Which in turn leaves a lot to be desired.
TVSA has compiled the Top 10 Shows per channel viewing figures for Weeks 16 and 17, as well as the Top 5 shows in a number of genres across all channels, using the TAMS Ratings provided by SAARF (The South African Advertising Research Council).
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To find out how TVSA calculates the viewership figures, go here:
The Primetime TV Viewing Figures ExplainedFor previous weeks, go here:
Primetime TV Viewing FiguresFor the full Week 16 and 17 listings, go here:
Week 16: 16 - 22 April |
Week 17: 23 - 29 April