RATINGS: July 2016 News and actuality highlights

• As usual, the Zulu news and the Xhosa on SABC1 were on top, by far. The Zulu bulletin pulled 4.4 million viewers with the Xhosa one pulling 4.3 million viewers.
• Current affairs programme, Speak Out was SABC2's biggest news and actuality show, pulling in 2.1 million viewers.
• The top news bulletin on SABC2 was the Afrikaans news which was able to draw 1.43 million viewers, which is on par with its June viewership. What makes this more impressive is that the bulletin moved half hour later in July. However, unlike the last time when the buletin moved to 7:30pm (and viewership dipped), the bulletin now had the benefit of its traditional lead in, 7de Laan, too moving half hour later so viewers could keep their traditional Afrikaans hour as is, just slightly later.
• The multilingual news bulletin (something that shouldn't exist under 90% local because there is absolutely no reason why these languages can't get equal time like the others) drew 1.36 million viewers, down 300 000 viewers from June.
• The documentary show that just doesn't die, 50/50, somehow still manages 1.2 million viewers after all these years.
• The English news bulletin on SABC3 continues to build an audience , drawing 870 000 viewers in July.
• The long-struggling Afternoon Express pulled an impressive 730 000 viewers as a result of being on air an hour later at 5pm, which is essentially an early evening hour, but okay.
• The 6pm Headlines edition of eNews Direct continues to benefit from its WWE lead in, pulling over 2.5 million viewers on the weekends. The usual weekday edition still struggles though, not cracking the channels top 20 programming.
• DSTV's top 30 programmes now get released on one list and not one news programme made the platform's top 30. Not Carte Blanche. Nothing on eNCA, on any news channel. Not one of Kyknet's million news and actuality programmes. Not even a sports news programme. nothing.  For perspective, the 30th ranked programme, an Africa Magic movie, pulled 219 000 viewer.