TopTV that turned one on Sunday and let the first birthday on 1 May slip by without having any executives of the pay TV operator do interviews and failed to make its ''missing-in-action'' CEO Vino Govender available for interviews, says ''there is no silence''.
TopTV's vice president for marketing, Elouise Kelly spoke by telephone on the radio this afternoon with John Maytham of The John Maytham Show where John Maytham asked Elouise Kelly:
''So we shouldn't do what some columnist [referring to me, TV with Thinus of course] have done and infer from your silence - you're lack of publicity around your first birthday - that there's nothing to celebrate from the first year?''
''No you shouldn't, quite frankly,'' Elouise Kelly said. ''I'm not even going to comment on that. You shouldn't,'' she said, irritation audible in her voice. ''We're basically focusing on a consumer project. We just started a campaign which is a competition for TopTV subscribers going to the BET Awards and the ILFA Awards in Canada, France24's studios in Paris etcetera etcetera, so very much a consumer driven initiative. That's to say to people thank you for being with us and this is what we're giving back.''
''In the next couple of months we're going to talk more about the business side and what out long term plans are etcetera; but definitely there is no silence. We are happy to talk.''
Editor's note: What journalists like me covering television in all its facets find difficult to understand is the last comment from Elouise Kelly. Why on earth is nobody from TopTV's executive management and CEO Vino Govender - despite repeated media enquiries and requests weeks before the time - available to talk right now? Requests were met with not even a ''no'' but no response. Why did TopTV decide to not even have a basic telephone conference call with journalists or a basic press conference that costs nothing? Why not use the leverage that comes with a birthday to talk now about what you're doing as a company, how the past year was and what's ahead - while the company has cache and the press is actually interested right now?
It's incredibly bad media planning and shows a complete lack of insight and understanding towards what corporate communication should/could be and what shareholders, subscribers, viewers and ad buyers require and actually want. They want to hear from you. They want to hear what the people running TopTV or the guy right at the top of TopTV has to say after a year in operation. To have a marketing executive say ''there is no silence. We are happy to talk'' is the same as the Zimbabwean government saying ''you're welcome to buy'' while store shelves are empty, or the Democratic Republic of the Congo calling itself ''democratic''. Simply saying it, doesn't make it so. TopTV's empty rhetoric is astounding.
ALSO READ: TopTV's one year old - and not talking about it.
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ALSO READ: How TopTV's TV channel Top One is wasting away.
ALSO READ: TopTV: ''As a young company TopTV is aware of its current challenges but also very proud of its achievements to date''.
ALSO READ: TopTV that just turned one without talking says its CEO Vino Govender ''will talk in the next couple of months''.
