The controversial eighth season of The Amazing Race - entitled
Family Edition - has taken a huge hit on SABC3, with close to a quarter of its viewership dropping out for the third episode.
The first two episodes were actually one episode split over two weeks, and those two episodes were well-watched, with well over a million South Africans tuning in each time.
But the third episode - which aired on Tuesday 8 August - lost 262,500 viewers, or 24 percent of its viewership.
The show dropped out of the Top 5 Reality Shows across all channels and dropped out of SABC3's Top 10 most-watched shows in Week 33 (7 - 13 August).
So where did more than a quarter of a million viewers suddenly disappear to?
The answer is easy - SABC2's
Medical Investigation poached 185,300 of those viewers in the same week, going from 941,800 in Week 32 to 1,127,100 in Week 33.
Medical Investigation is The Amazing Race's direct competitor in the primetime 19h30 Tuesday night slot.
The Race's other big timeslot competitor - SABC1's
Generations - also stole a bunch of SABC3's viewers, gaining 117,300 viewers (on aggregate) from the week before.
So between them Medical Investigation and Generations proved a haven for fans of the Amazing Race who are not enjoying the family season, with its weakened challenges and child-friendly locations.
This merely confirms what TVSA readers have been saying ever since the new season started.
"I don't think this season is such a bad idea, at least not in theory, but it's not living up to its full potential because of bland, run-of-the-mill 'tasks' that require no brain power or effort", wrote TVSA's
Race Ramblings columnist, Claudia Ferreira.
TVSA member 'ice' agreed: "I'm not a huge TAR fan, but I watch anyway because of the great tasks they come up with," ice wrote on the forums. "In this edition I have to agree that the tasks lack imagination and I'm struggling to watch."
Another TVSA member - Shakes - argued that it's not the families that are the problem, but rather the confines of the Race.
"If the families were flying all over the world, I think it might have been much more enjoyable (just imagine the Weavers coping in India...), but the fact that their race is confined to the US makes it the worst TAR season ever," she wrote, also on the TVSA forums.
All of which makes Family Edition's
Emmy win for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program on Sunday night all the more intriguing...
TVAS has compiled the Top 10 Shows per channel viewing figures for Week 33, 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).
For the full listings, go here:
Week 33: 7 - 13 August
Other Interesting Notes
SABC2
SABC2's
Strictly Come Dancing gained 169,900 viewers from its first to its second episode, to 1,497,700 viewers - making it the 4th most popular show on the channel in Week 33.
e.tv
e.tv's Sunday night blockbuster feature is traditionally the channel's 2nd most-watched show on any given week (the top show each week is
WWE Smackdown!).
In Week 32 the channel aired Enemy of the State with Will Smith and Gene Hackman, which was watched by more than 2-million viewers.
In Week 33 the channel aired Bad Company with Chris Rock and Anthony Hopkins in the same 20h00 timeslot, which was watched by 1,574,900 - almost half a million less viewers.
Both movies had an old white guy and a young, hip black guy, but clearly South Africans prefer a combination of Smith/Hackman to Rock/Hopkins.
Interesting...
M-Net
M-Net's
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition lost 231,600 viewers from Week 32 to Week 33. No other channel appears to have picked up the slack - indeed, SABC3's
Days Of Our Lives, a competitor in the Thursday 17h00 time slot, also lost viewers in Week 33.
Maybe South Africans decided to spend some quality family time together that evening instead.
To find out how TVSA calculates the viewership figures, go here:
The Primetime TV Viewing Figures Explained
For previous weeks, go here:
Primetime TV Viewing Figures