Neither executives or PR people are Tswelopele Productions which produces the longrunning Top Billing magazine show, nor SABC3's marketing division or PR entities involved there, bothered to communicate or to reach out to all the TV critics about the show's move on the SABC3 schedule from April to a new day and time.
It's disappointing: Top Billing and SABC3 held a media event for press with Top Billing co-executive producer Basetsana Kumalo, and Top Billing presenters flown to Johannesburg for a press meet and greet at 54 on Bath - but it was only for Johannesburg press.
Journalists and TV critics who write nationally and who are read nationally - from Durban, Port Elizabeth and Cape Town - were blatantly excluded when the Top Billing presenters Janez Vermeiren, Jeannie D, Simba Mhere, Bonang Matheba, Jonathan Boyonton-Lee and Lorna Maseko all united. Top points for relationship building with the media.
At least there was a heads-up beforehand to press and print journalists based not in Johannesburg that it was happening and the basic information that Top Billing is moving on the schedule? Uhm, no.
At least there was a general press release about it all (afterwards) about Top Billing moving, send to all journalists, writer and critics who are stakeholders and write about the show, right? Uhm, no.
In fact, even before TV with Thinus broke the news in the first half of March about the 21 year old Top Billing moving to another night and a new timeslot on the SABC3 schedule I made several media enquiries to several people and places who never bothered to give any official response.
As a journalist and a TV critic I write about television and track and cover the television industry because I love it.
But it doesn't take a big guess to realize that there's going to be journalists and writers and critics who go passive aggressive because they don't feel included or talked and communicated to, and simply focus on, and cover, something other than Top Billing. At least for a while.
Meanwhile all that is needed is actually just some basic non-laziness and actual communication. Unless I'm on the side of the people who are wrong and that the expectation that a product or a brand, or brands, should reach out and communicate and talk and involve the people and the media who cover it, is unreasonable.
