The MILLION Viewership Mark Still Eludes Isibaya

It may be the second most talked about soapie in South Africa and boast three honours at the South African Film and Television Awards, and 10 at the first Royalty Soapie Awards but Isibaya is still not attracting enough viewers to move from the bottom of the list in viewership ratings. 

While many will be quick to lay the blame at the fact that most South Africans do not own DSTV, this is put into question by the fact that a considerable number of new DSTV subscribers are not all flocking to watch the show.

Shows on channels such as TLC and BBC Lifestyle show some traction with the increasing number of new subscribers brought on by the compact deal but notable number of viewers still abandon the other DSTV channels to watch shows on SABC1. 

SABC1 still dominates primetime viewing in South Africa, with all the shows that follow Generations and lead in to the soapie enjoying some impressive numbers. 

Shows that were seemingly dying a slow death like Selimathunzi have also suddenly been resuscitated. 

Even the Twitter hype around Isibaya have waned.  What went wrong?

With Generations at around 7 million and Muvhango at 5 million viewers, does Isibaya even have chance when it can not even crack the one million mark yet?