On Sunday, August 13th, the Miss SA pageant competition finale was hosted by media personality Bonang Matheba and brought in 1.8 million viewers.
The Queen B Returns
Weeks before the highly anticipated Miss SA 2023 finale, the Miss South Africa organization announced that media powerhouse Bonang Matheba would be hosting this year’s finale. Bonang had previously hosted the pageant in 2018 and 2019 when Zozibini Tunzi won the title. In 2014, The Queen B was also on the Miss SA judging panel when Rolene Strauss won the crown.
This year, not only did Bonang deliver a stellar job hosting the live event at the Sun-Bet arena in Pretoria, but she also looked absolutely gorgeous.
The Power of Bonang Matheba
According to a Twitter post by South African entertainment commentator Phil Mphela, the Miss SA pageant competition finale broadcast on SABC 3 brought in 1.8 million viewers on Sunday, August 13th. The broadcast of the Miss SA ceremony, hosted by Bonang and executive produced by Relebogile Mabotja, started with 641K viewers at 18h30 and rapidly gained more eyeballs, clocking more than 1.08 Million by 21h00 – a 10% audience share. This is double what S3’s top-rated program currently pulls.
TimesLive reported that a publicity specialist for video entertainment at SABC confirmed the high-performing viewer numbers that were brought to SABC3 by the Miss SA finale. The increase in viewers comes at a notably good time for the SABC3 channel, especially since they had accumulated a continuous drop in its ratings. The channel also recently rebranded from SABC 3 to S3 to realign its audience.