TV News South Africa

Breaking new ground on M-Net

The new M-Net drama series Prison Break has exceeded all expectations and achieved the highest ARs in its timeslot for the first episode on 24 January 2006.

According to AGBNMR overnight data, Prison Break achieved 9.1 ARs on Tuesday 24th January between 8:30pm - 9:30pm, measured against a high income audience.

This translates in excess of an estimated 414 000 individuals. This pilot episode out-performed all TV stations followed closely by SABC3 achieving 9.0 ARs, DStv Commercial 7.6 ARs, SABC1 5.6 ARs, etv 3.9 ARs, while SABC2 achieved 2.2 ARs.

Prison Break's 9.1ARs compares more than favourably with the rest of M-Net's flagship programmes like Egoli which averages 7.9 ARs, Carte Blanche 9.3 ARs and even the Sunday 20h00 Premier of 8.8 ARs (Source: Transmit 1-30 Nov 05 average).

In addition, for the first time, a sponsor has come on board to run a competition on an international series. Peugeot is giving away a brand new vehicle in a 12-week multi-media competition that incorporates television, SMS, the M-Net website, emails and newsletters. The competition encourages loyal viewership, viewer interaction and helps create a viewer database.

Viewers can enter at any time during the 12-weeks and can go back to questions they have been unable to answer previously. Once all the questions have been answered correctly, a final question will be revealed to win a Peugeot 1007.

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