With no word about a(ny) replacement, journalists and TV critics started wondering last week and on Monday what is going on at e.tv where yet another publicity manager quietly exited, with neither e.tv nor the publicist who bothered to liaise or do "media relations"-ing to inform the press or to say goodbye.
Publicity people just leaving e.tv, oddly without saying they're leaving is a strange pattern that stretches back over the bigger part of the last decade.
e.tv's publicity effort took a further dive this year with a weird and hapless Imbewu media launch that caused the press to roll their eyes, while e.tv publicity told me when I asked what happened that "we tried something new". (Something that clearly didn't really work).
That was followed by the trash-handling PR disaster of e.tv dumping Sunrise on its 10th anniversary and the controversial replacement by the outsourced The Morning Show with barely any publicity support or help to the press.
e.tv's publicity department was never able to move beyond a "it's a sensitive issue" when asked what's going on and doing nothing to actually help media covering either Surise's demise or the roll-out of The Morning Show.
Then followed further deep sighs and a "lets just move on" attitude from the press before and after eNCA's (DStv 403) cojoined, underplayed 10th birthday celebration that saw no engagement with the media from e.tv and the pitiful eNCA on-air rebrand and studio makeover that did away with the Africa logo where e.tv squandered goodwill, media buy-in and countless positive coverage opportunities by basically doing nothing and ignoring relevant media who did cared but gave up on trying to mark the milestone.
e.tv didn't bother to get any handle on the ongoing wave of defections at eNCA this year with no responses to media enquiries about it, or even any basic type of response or announcements when people leave which is what publicity divisions (are supposed to) do.
Information and coverage about eMedia Investment's Openview remains nearly non-existent in the press since e.tv does nothing about news and developments like its set-top box that recently became PVR enabled - not just frustrating the press but also e.tv and Openview installers who are quietly complaining.
Journalists from across South Africa told me they would ask e.tv things - like specifically about the PVR capability of Openview, and get no responses.
Then there's the nothing-ado-about-nothing about news like the eNews studio makeover unveiled last month.
OpenNews, the new Afrikaans content on the eExtra channel and the new Afrikaans daily TV news bulletin Nuusdag are launching on 1 October but there been no word from e.tv or Openview to the press about any of it.
(Openview itself of course rebranded its look and logo but again, neither Openview nor e.tv bothered to do any PR.)
Last week the now-former e.tv publicity manager Michael Pocock's email started sending out "the recipient's mailbox is full and can't accept messages now. Please try resending this message later" when contacted.
"Michael Pocock gone from e.tv without a word," said a longtime editor covering television on Monday who reached out to tell me, a sentiment echoed by others who were not told and slowly found out.
Indeed, he left just like his e.tv predecessor Matla Ragoasha, with media not being told, not told what's going on or who they need to deal with now, and press not left with a good impression of e.tv and how PR and proper media relationship building from the broadcaster is supposed to be done.
