I'm getting a lot of very angry letters from upset viewers who are ranting and raving about the clutch of celeb tabloids and entertainment weeklies now spoiling SABC3's Survivor Gabon with exit interviews before the contestant even got voted out - and going so far as to even punting it with the contestants' names and photos on their covers. Very bad. But don't really blame them.
I smiled 2 weeks ago because I knew it was coming. Don't really blame the magazines like YOU and others. Although the YOU and other magazines have ''new'' issues coming out now, its actually all old news and interviews produced before Christmas and they didn't really plan on spoiling the show for readers. Here's what they won't tell you but what's really happening, straight from an insider who knows how they operate, and who have been in this production cycle for many years too: me.
The real culprit is SABC3. All of the weekly magazines on supermarket shelves the past 3 weeks and the coming week (for monthlies even their February issues) all ''closed'' as we call it in the rag trade before Christmas. Although TV with Thinus stayed fresh and I gave you new TV news all through the end of the year and kept you updated with all the latest inside scoop regarding what's happening with Survivor Gabon on SABC3, all of these magazines' editions were put to bed before the end of the year. It means they were sent to the factory and printed where trucks now wait diligently for the right distribution date to deliver them to where they're sold.
When I worked as news editor at newspapers and my last magazine, what I'd do (as do they) is to ''plot'' according to dates once a channel issues their confirmed schedule. If you're clever you read up and try to watch a show and then look for ''reader interest points''. After that you look for the local broadcasting dates of those shows, and ''time it'' on your planning sheet according to specific magazine issue dates for when you will then run a story or interview around those ''interest points''. Of course SABC3 had to postpone the launch date of the first episode of Survivor Gabon right before Christmas when future issues were not just already at printing presses but magazine staffs were already gone for the holidays and editors undoubtedly waiting for the inevitable fallout and reader backlash they knew were coming.
Wth SABC3 making the episode order run one week later, the exit interviews and news about who's out of Survivor Gabon no longer appears in magazines one week after it ''happened'' (as it was planned) but before its happening. It should correct next week when embarassed magazine staffs start working on their ''really new'' issues this week. It could have been worse though. Imagine what would have happened if SABC3 had to postpone Survivor Gabon for more than one week. . .
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