NEWS
“WildEarth has always been a decentralised
company that has always operated
100% digitally, so moving to Zoom
meetings and having everything in the
cloud was not a challenge, as that is how
we have always been,” says Wallington.
As restrictions eased, WildEarth began
adding more locations to their live
streams - and in spite of the careful juggling
act between presenters, camera
operators and other staff, Wallington
says they have successfully avoided any
staff becoming infected with the coronavirus.
“We are lucky in that our teams can
quite easily isolate, as they are isolated
in the wilderness anyway,” says Wallington.
Massive increase in lockdown viewers
South Africa’s hard lockdown has been
good for WildEarth - during early lockdown
Wallington says WildEarth’s viewership
rose five-fold, with viewership
from South Africa increasing fifteenfold.
“While viewer numbers have dropped
somewhat since the April peak, our
global viewership is still more than double
when compared with March, and
South African viewership remains at well
over seven times what it was before the
lockdown,” says Wallington.
“Expressed in hours viewed, this number
for South Africa is currently still eleven
times what it was before lockdown.”
People are also starting to watch more
of each safari than they did previously.
Wallington says people are sticking
around for 50% longer than they did before
the lockdown, which means on average
South African viewers are watching
about 50 minutes per three-hour
drive.
Each live-streamed safari is currently
viewed by about 40,000 people, and
in the month of July, a total of about
1.5 million watched their safaris - down
from a peak in April of about 2 million.
The increased viewer numbers and interest
around the world has led to interest
from several new opportunities.
In mid-lockdown they licensed shows
to the BBC and Chinese conglomerate
Tencent, and have recently agreed on a
deal with CGTN to broadcast directly to
China, complete with Chinese subtitles.
Locally, WildEarth struck a deal with
SABC 3, to broadcast the safaris live between
3 pm and 4 pm daily, which Wallington
says reaches 200,000 viewers per
show. And in late-August, WildEarth
announced that it will be launching a
brand new 24-hour safari channel on
DStv Channel 183.
The new DStv channel will initially feature
seven hours of live safaris each day
- with a vision to expand this offering
to include live safaris around the clock,
from various timezones.
South African company WildEarth,
which has been broadcasting live
safaris for several years, has seen its
viewer numbers skyrocket during
lockdown.
During the lockdown, WildEarth
focused on broadcasting its twicedaily
safaris from reserves adjacent
to the Kruger National Park, but
quickly expanded to include both
Phinda Private Game Reserve
and Tswalu.
From August, they will be broadcasting
live from the Maasai Mara
and launching a dedicated
channel on DSTV.
Figure 2: A screengrab from Youtube: https://youtu.be/o0n7Fv_JRt4
29
Grassroots Vol 20 No 3 September 2020