The majority of the people who filed into and took their seats inside the Silverline Studios set of
Survivor South Africa: Phillipines to be part of the live studio audience for the season finale on M-Net (DStv 101) this week would have had no idea who, quite unassumingly, sat right next to them.
On Thursday evening, both
Nkateko Mabaso, acting M-Net CEO, and
Kay Ann Williams, head of local content and independent films for the M-Net channels, unpretentiously slipped inside on the rain-soaked night.
Even though they could have chosen or have demanded better seats - in fact they completely deserved front row seats - both of them literally went and sat in two of the worst seats in the house: right behind the back-end of the techno-crane to its immediate right, basically obstructing their view of the centre stage and blocking probably about 70% of what you can see in the front.
They seemed unperturbed.
Both stayed seated here for the full 2 hours of the
Survivor SA: Phillipines finale, produced by Afrokaans - and for the first time from Cape Town - until they, together with M-Net commissioning editor
Terja Beney exited stage left.
They then all mingled at the music, drinks and food-filled adjacent stage on the Silverlines Studios lot with media, guests, contestants, sponsors and ordinary fans.
Remarkable? At first glance, possibly not. But in reality, within the context of South Africa's TV industry, it's hugely significant and exceptional.
As they and their predecessors have done for years, and quite remarkably continue doing, M-Net's top level executives - similar to America's HBO, CBS, FX and a few others - keep showing up at things where they don't, at first glance, appear needed or having to be.
These executives
literally show up on set and at events and they personally visit their channel's TV productions even though they strictly don't have to.
This continued, personal and hands-on approach, is quite different from how execs at the SABC, e.tv, and several of the other pay-TV channels carried on MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV platform for instance, behave.
Although this hands-on behaviour is exhibited by several high-ranking American TV channel executives who remain intimately involved in, and in touch with shows even though they don't have to
physically be there in person, it's not something that's really seen or experienced in the South African biz outside of M-Net.
The majority simply just don't do it.
It's also why a production like
Uselwa on SABC1 "suddenly" implodes with SABC execs only
then starting to scurry to set for the first time after months, get held "hostage" and don't know what to do or how to resolve a production crisis or gridlock. It's because they've never been there.
In almost two decades of covering South Africa's TV industry, this TV critic has never attended the final episode of a local SABC1, SABC2 or e.tv reality competition show where at least one or more of that channel's execs were also in attendance. Ditto for an episode recording.
For the end of SABC3's
The Apprentice SA back in September 2005 I spotted some SABC executives who bothered to show up for this. SABC1's channel head was at the launch and filming of
Uzalo.
It's not that they're bad. They're busy.
Beyond M-Net's executives, a precious few other high-ranking executives however perpetually show up
and show up although they're very busy too.
They're there for their local shows during filming, for media events, for finales, at channels' upfront presentations and at things where their participation and presence are not strictly required, but that they personally deem to be important because it clearly really matters to them.
Count under them BBC Africa boss
Joel Churcher. MultiChoice's head of content,
Aletta Alberts. Director of M-Net channels,
Jan du Plessis. Or someone like MultiChoice content bouquet manager
Alet Bench.
The Walt Disney Company Africa boss
Christine Service is equally at home doing a set visit at ABC's Cape Town filmed TV series
Of Kings and Prophets as she is attending a film biz investment seminar or doing a presentation to journalists about the gains and reach of the Disney Junior (DStv 309) channel herself.
Viacom Africa boss
Alex Okosi actually
goes to things - to things where he's not talking and where he, if he didn't show face, wouldn't be missed. And yet he goes.
Earlier this year
Yolisa Phahle, CEO of general entertainment at MultiChoice set-visited HBO's
Warrior being filmed in Cape Town. Don't mistakenly think that she
had to.
And when she sits in the audience for
Dancing with the Stars SA in Johannesburg on a Sunday night, after hours it's not because of a lack of work or better things to do.
The interesting thing about South Africa's bold type execs who go far above and beyond the call of the job description and who continue to step away from their ever-full inboxes more than they have to, are that they maintain a much better grasp on what's really going on, who's doing what, and what the current industry challenges and movements are.
Instead of only peering through the gauze of middle-men PR, they also know the media directly and very often directly interact with members of the press when they spot them.
Although they run the zoo, they've learnt and know the times the hippo takes a snooze and when it's safe to peek inside. They know personally where the master key to the lion's cage is kept and has no problem to go and get the key themselves when something needs doing.
Seen in isolation, South Africa's 42-year old TV industry is big and continues to expand - the most sophisticated on the African continent by far - but compared across a wider perspective it's much smaller and younger compared to the United States or the United Kingdom where also more of an institutional history within companies and broadcasters reside.
As the country's local TV biz continues to mature, grow and add capacity, it's encouraging that there are TV executives - mostly within the fold of pay-TV - who really take their work seriously, and who really set an example of continuously going beyond the basics and bare minimum of what they need to do.
They're the people who not only show up at work every day because they have to but are TV execs who constantly journey ever further - showing up where they don't have to be because they really want to, inherently recognising the long-term dividends it unlock.
They're the indefatigable handful of TV executives who not only truly live their brands, but their work - and who, incrementally, all in their own unique ways, help to make the television you're getting to watch, better.
