When Africa's Next Top Model starts tonight at 19:00 on AfricaMagic Entertainment (DStv 151) it will do so with barely a whimper of the usual publicity avalanche which accompanies the reality shows pay-TV broadcaster M-Net is involved in.
That in itself is extremely telling to longtime TV critics who are raising their eyebrows over Africa's Next Top Model and who discussed this past week before the first episode is supposed to start on Sunday, what seems to be a major lack of any focused and concerted publicity effort to give TV critics information about the show.
It usually means a TV production is lowbrow television trash.
The past week, and the preceding month in fact, M-Net did nothing to bring the new reality show and it starting date under South African TV critics' and writers' attention.
Even when asked about it at the beginning of the past week when this TV critic co-incidentally happened to notice an on-air promo, M-Net and AfricaMagic couldn't supply high resolution publicity images.
There were no previews or screenings or screener disks sent to critics and TV writers who cover television, episode synopsis and episodic images are not available, the broadcaster on Tuesday said it had zero profiles available about the 12 contestants in response to media enquiries, there's no photos of the judges, and M-Net and the AfricaMagic division failed to even responded about who the judges are.
It begs the question: Is the amateur and bad pre-publicity from M-Net and AfricaMagic Entertainment the silence before the storm? Is it the ominous indicator that Africa's Next Top Model is the next totally trash television travesty?
Why is so little - in fact, barely anything - being said by M-Net (or by South African Tourism for that matter) about what is supposedly this big continental competition with South African Tourism as sponsor and Nigerian model Oluchi Orlani as the presenter?
Even the short clips included in an on-air promo of the so-called models in the model house in Cape Town, running around, screaming and shouting at each other in what looks like badly filmed shaky camerawork doesn't bode well for this production.
Is the conflict and the fractured relationship between contestants what Africa's Next Top Model is about and will be little more than just a low budget wannabe model version of Big Brother Africa?
Is the trash side what the focus is on instead of finding a model (because fighting is what is given importance in the promo and predominantly shown)? Is Africa's Next Top Model about showing the finding of a model or to reveal how trashy African girls are behaving (towards each other)?
It was initially announced that New York's Lulu Productions will work with South Africa's Never Machine Productions and Gavin Wratten on this show. It's not clear whether it was indeed the case; neither M-Net nor AfricaMagic issued the usual basic pre-show press release before the programme starts this Sunday evening.
Some of the judges (there might be more, who knows) of Africa's Next Top Model are apparently Oluchi Onweagba, South African photographer Josie Borain who is based in Cape Town, and Remi Adetiba from New York who is unknown here.
It's disappointing that once again money went into making a show, but that the effort, expertise and know-how appears to apparently be sorely lacking when it comes to following through on correctly publicising something like Africa's Next Top Model. Maybe its more meant for the Nigerian TV market or the show is more a marketing exercise for whatever than actually about quality TV content. Who knows.
