You're seeing it here first.
How do you know you had a great media event and dinner? When the journalists attending start to steal your menus right off the table.
I'm just back after Discovery Networks unveiled their line-up for South African viewers for the rest of 2010 to the press and TV critics. Discovery's sneak preview and a screening of highlights across its DStv channels - Discovery Channel (DStv 121), Discovery World (DStv 250), Animal Planet (DStv 264) and Discovery HD Showcase (DStv 172) - included sundowner cocktails at the top of a Cape Town penthouse suite, followed by an amazing dinner.
I'll dish about the various Discovery channels and their respective upcoming TV highlights for the rest of the year in my next blog post, but what really got TV writers buzzing and chattering immediately, was the smooth presentation (no video and sound problems) and after that the superbly clever way the Discovery dinner menu of all things was presented.
Discovery Networks have some great shows as well as on-air talent lined up for after the 2010 FIFA World Cup - and they obviously know it. In a very clever way they incorporated their broadcast line-up into their dinner menu in the perfect manner, headlining it with the words ''Premier course''. Journalists were excitedly chattering about Ultimate Survival which was a succulent beef fillet option (complete with wild mushrooms) and Deadliest Catch - Norwegian salmon. There was also Surviving Disaster: Potato Gnocci with green olives and blue cheese sauce! Cake Boss, another new Discovery show was how dessert appeared on the Discovery menu (creme brulee, chocolate mousse and a magnificent cheese platter), finished off with another new Discovery show title viewers will see soon: Stephen Hawkings Universe (Universal champagne cocktails).
If you want to read some of the chatter that I was privy to during the surprisingly wonderful event, click on READ MORE below.
''Oh wow. These people can write a PR book for dummies,'' a magazine editor and friend messaged me after I got home about the way Discovery Networks had a step by step, logical approach and presentation when they unveiled their line-up for the rest of the year, but also meaning that the press material and what Discovery Networks made available to South African TV critics and writers were just the right amount, easy to digest, and enabling easy planning of stories.
But that was after I got home. During the cocktails pre-presentation wise, journos were smiling at the venue. It wasn't the usual dinky dark rooms TV critics are invited to, but the top of the roof at a swanky new hotel in Cape Town while the sun was setting. The red Merlot wine didn't go down well with the troop, but the white wine was fine.
During the Discovery presentation the writers seated around me were happy with the pace of the presentation, the logical order, the amount of screening material to give a decent look and feel about the various upcoming TV shows, and also the narration - that didn't repeat what was written and already flashed on screen and vice versa. ''I can listen to him talk all day,'' said a blogger seated close to me of the Discovery exec, Paul Welling who made the presentation. The sound and video was perfect and not the usual jumble that get stuck or burst your eardrums that broadcasters try to play and inevitably mess up during presentations.
''They couldn't talk too much about their new Discovery channels on TopTV,'' said one who leaned over to me afterwards in the viewing area, ''but respect for Discovery living in the real world and at least acknowledging it in a few sentences. It makes such a difference.''
None left early (and usually you get a few or a lot depending on the quality of the presentation) and the dinner area had beautifully mounted poster size photos of Discovery on-air talent around the walls like Dave Salmoni and Bear Grylls. ''They showcase their best stuff in just the right amount. Not crass and overbearing but they're not underselling what they've got coming up in the year either,'' said one.
And I saw several people put one of the clever menus in their bags. After I've already snagged one for myself. Of course.
