Workers who had their positions and responsibilities changed, powers reduced or responsibilities and work load increased are not happy. ''It's no longer the optimistic place it was when we started,'' one told me, saying, ''It's not Disney.'' ''There's a lot of uncertainty of it we're going to still have a job,'' said another.
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''Any new business which has to transition from being in start-up phase to being fully operations has to assess structures to ascertain whether or not they can support the business needs,'' says Elouise Kelly, TopTV's vice president for marketing in answer to a media enquiry. (Elouise Kelly's titled also changed from ''chief marketing officer'' it was previously.)
''Sometimes this will result in re-structures which will affect some staff more than others,'' she says. Speaking about TopTV's restructing she says ''this is essentially an internal process which is aligned to business needs, objectives, budgets and ultimately what we can deliver to our current and potential subscribers.''
The new pay TV operator is regularly criticised for not talking and communicating enough and wide enough with ad buyers or the press. Since TopTV's commercial launch in May last year it held one press conference - the one at launch. ODM CEO Vino Govender is also reluctant to do any press interviews while other top brass are not talking.
For its first birthday TopTV might have a press conference again. It remains to be seen whether the pay TV operator - if there is a press conference - might be willing to face questions about its performance, subscriber base, viewership, subscriber complaints, the lack of progress on new TV channels, content development, customer service, technology roll-out and the company's restructuring process.
