Sadly what could be a vibrant, talked-about, buzzed-about (and watched!) pay TV channel alternative to M-Net in South Africa has to get a report card on its first birthday noting serious danger signs and trends that doesn't bode well for Top One's aspired positioning of being - or trying to become - a coveted general entertainment channel.
Despite repeated requests first made weeks ago by TV with Thinus, no Top One executives - neither TopTV brass overseeing the channel, nor Top One programming executives, buyer execs, schedulers or anyone involved in the channel were made available for interviews or rolled out to talk and be seen at least once since a year has now passed on what is supposed to be the TopTV crown jewel. Maybe because it isn't?
Top One's daily TV schedule almost doesn't appear daily in print (the most direct way for TopTV to reach its subscribers in the LSM segments its targeting) except for the new newspaper The New Age. (The New Age started its page templates from scratch after TopTV launched so it wasn't about having to redesign so much as just making space right from the start.) TopTV executives in a whole year never cared to physically visit newspapers and magazines and to put in the time to go and woo and discuss publishers one by one on how to get TV guides redesigned to possibly include Top One next to the main players SABC1, SABC2, SABC3, e.tv and M-Net where the schedule can be seen daily. And here's a secret Top One - they're not unless you're not. They couldn't care less. You have to care enough about your product to go and do the hard work, and it's hard work.
Why is there after a year not one dedicated publicist or an outsourced PR company just working on Top One, tirelessly sending out a weekly programming schedule, tirelessly calling journalist at least weekly to set up interviews with stars, selling story ideas and talking up Top One's content like a litany of other smaller TV channels?
Even if Top One had one or two really buzzworthy shows it would be enough to tie viewers and subscribers over, and to - importantly - get them to employ the most valuable and powerful marketing tool: word of mouth. It's as if, with M-Net turning 25 later this year, TopTV and Top One executives are stumbling around cluelessly and aimlessly - taking no pages from the playbook of how M-Net started in 1986 and built itself up as a première pay TV channel. Nobody said it would be easy, but one year in and by any objective means Top One should have been much further along as a vibrant one year old. Instead its limping like a kid hardly ever picked up and wasting away in a cot.
There are some encouraging signs. You can't go wrong with juicy telenovellas like Lalola - the South American over-the-top soap opera has been that something-different, something-refreshing that South African TV viewers will see nowhere else but on Top One. The new addition since May of the talk show Martha with Martha Stewart is also a great step in the right direction - once again an excellent daily talk show to anchor certain day segments on the Top One schedule. If Top One can allow its primetime shows like Lost, Brothers and Sisters, True Blood, Dexter all in early seasons to run continuously and catch up it would build buzz and bring eyeballs - but with those rights tied up by M-Net, it's probably wishful thinking.
If Top One wants to be the cute one year old that everybody ooh and aah's about and rush to pick up to immediately becomes the centre of the conversation when its seen in a room, TopTV needs to seriously, with focus and with determination, start to invest not just money in great acquisitions, but also time and attention. One year olds - especially somewhat neglected ones - will truly blossom when smothered with love and dedicated attention.
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ALSO READ: TopTV aint talking. How TopTV is spoiling its first birthday as South Africa's new pay TV operator.
