South Africans win the year-end binge-fest
- Petronella Mphahlele
- Jan 9, 2020
- 3 min read
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Showmax Online did a quick trawl of holiday viewing data on Showmax to see if they could spot any trends in how people used their downtime. Not everything was as expected…
More people than ever before got on the streaming bandwagon, and those who were watching streamed more than usual. The net effect was a 30% increase in viewing hours compared to the average seen in prior months.
Peak couch time? Viewing activity actually maxed out on Sunday, 29 December.
What time of the day? high at 6pm.
The most-watched local genre? People can’t get enough of local reality shows, with a particularly strong showing from The Real Housewives of Johannesburg.
Which sport got the most views? More people watched Wolves beat Manchester City 3-2 on 27 December – than any other game.
Did people use the holidays to binge more than usual? Oh yes – The peak binge by a single account was more than 200 episodes of the same show!
Which series genres were the most-binged? Comedy, medical drama and crime drama were all really popular binge destinations (people watching multiple successive episodes).
What were the most-binged local series? The River, Binnelanders and Getroud Met Rugby stood out in terms of the number of successive episodes watched.
Any other content trends? People watched way more movies than usual, which could be a reflection of having more opportunities to sit still for several hours at a time.
And how do the trends stack up around Africa? South Africans clearly take their leisure time seriously, with average hours per viewer up 21% compared to normal activity, while in Nigeria that increase was just 10%, and in Kenya an even smaller increase of 7%.
In the coming year, Showmax will be ramping up local content starting with The River S3 on 27 January, followed with Lockdown S5 on 30 Jan. Hollywood will continue to feature strongly, with Ray Donovan S7 starting 20 January and more blockbusters like A Star is Born and Aquaman for movie fans.
Recently expanded Kids’ selection includes everything from Paw Patrol to Star Wars Resistance. Finally, 2020 will see more top-flight sport, including more football from major local and international leagues coming live to Showmax.
Looking back over the year just finished, these were the most viewed series on Showmax in 2019 (in no particular order):
10 most-streamed international series on Showmax
HBO’s Euphoria
HBO’s Game of Thrones
HBO’s Chernobyl
Younger
HBO’s Big Little Lies
Vikings
Billions
The Girlfriend Experience
Siren
The Handmaid’s Tale
10 most-streamed South African series on Showmax
Trackers
The Real Housewives of Johannesburg
Being Bonang
The River
The Queen
Die Spreeus
Die Byl
The Girl From St Agnes
The Bachelor SA
Boer Soek ‘n Vrou
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