DISCOP Johannesburg 2017 felt 'less' than before - is the incompetent publicity around it to blame for the dull-and-dead feeling?

You won't be wrong if you felt that last week's TV market, DISCOP Johannesburg 2017 was somehow smaller and "less" than in previous years, but - and this is just a personal reflection - the PR and publicity for and around it, is honestly as shit bad as can be.

DISCOP Johannesburg that was started in 2012 is supposed to grow and get bigger, but 2017 felt like a flat ... well, failure would be too harsh a word, but "flat" would definitely be appropriate.

To comment a lot about it would be giving DISCOP Johannesburg 2017 more exposure than it deserves, but it is amazing that a TV market for Africa does so little effort in actually trying to get media attention before and during it.

The DISCOP publicity seems totally incompetent and wayward as far as the media is concerned, and as if DISCOP organisers and those responsible for publicity are clueless as to who the media are, and what their needs are.

Important to note: It's not supposed to be like this, and elsewhere it measurably is better. But DISCOP doesn't seem to care, which is apparently why things are they way they are.

This year's DISCOP Johannesburg 2017 from a media, reporting and publicity perspective, in my opinion was a downright mess, and I blame the publicists who don't know the press, who send out inane "one size must fit all" releases without really caring who they're sending it to, don't know who to send what to, and don't respond to media enquiries with what's required.

Just one personal case in point: More than a week before DISCOP 2017 started on 25 October, a DISCOP publicist reached out, asking me if I would you be interested in attending?

Like last year I said I'm not even based in Johannesburg.

I asked for something like a basic press release or information about what channel and content providers will be at DISCOP Johannesburg 2017 and that I will do a report about that.

I was told I'd be send a list and info.

Well, days after DISCOP 2017 ended there's been nothing. And there likely won't be anything.

Trashy and incompetent PR and publicity is damaging DISCOP. If you want proper buy in from media covering something like DISCOP, you actually need to have proper focus and put in real work.

Otherwise you end up with the dull as dead nonsense that marked DISCOP 2017.

Will DISCOP 2018 be a wash-rinse-repeat? We'll see.