by Thinus Ferreira
Despite there being at least 3 distinct PR teams specifically working in and at corporate communications, there is clearly chaos, incompetence, or a mix of both, at MultiChoice behind-the-scenes where the pay-TV company can't even send out a straight-forward press release about DStv's annual price increase to the media without issues anymore.
It's February again, which, after decades of covering MultiChoice, is a diary signal to longtime journalists that the pay-TV operator would be announcing its annual DStv price increases again, always coming into effect from April of a year.
Sadly, MultiChoice once again showed very little competence and a lot of eye-rolling amateurism in how it went about doing 2022's DStv price increase announcement.
This is despite MultiChoice having its own internal corporate communications team, and with MultiChoice also paying both the Duma Collective and JR Communications in addition to its permanently employed in-house team to do corporate communications and to deal with the media.
Between having 3 different PR teams MultiChoice's 2022 DStv price increase announcement was (once again) a spectacular mess.
Late on Friday last week after the close of business, media like TVwithThinus were ordered informed that there would be a media roundtable with Simon Camerer, MultiChoice chief operating officer (COO) this week Tuesday about the upcoming price increase.
With barely any advance notice and less than 2 working days' to plan or to slot it in - while journalists' diaries are constantly already usually full of scheduled interviews and appointments for the next 2 weeks running in an ongoing basis - it was beyond bizarre.
Do people working at MultiChoice in communications really think journalists and media are just sitting around, doing nothing, waiting to hear today that there will be an envelope opened tomorrow?
Very surely people who communicate professionally for a living, and who work with media are very well aware that as a company you need to schedule media interactions and that two-way communication is crucial.
Bizarrely, this was again a take-it-or-leave-it approach.
MultiChoice didn't and couldn't be bothered to ask the media whether they could make Tuesday or what day(s) or times would fit them to talk with MultiChoice's about its latest DStv price hike.
This was a Downton Abbey-esque "the king is available for an audience on this day and time and if you want to talk to Simon Camerer you talk to him when we say or not at all".
MultiChoice presumably thinks the media is at its beck and call and that the media needs MultiChoice more than what MultiChoice needs the media when it wants to talk about something.
TVwithThinus had to decline the roundtable because of being unavailable. It's impossible to do an interview or attend something when you're literally flying at that time, on a flight booked for a press event RSVP'ed to weeks earlier, and that MultiChoice knows is happening since DStv people are also attending it.
Asked if there is possibly other availability, MultiChoice said Simon Camerer is busy and can't talk other times or days and isn't available except for Tuesday.
Things got weirder still.
MultiChoice said it would send the updated DStv 2022 price information to media as embargoed information (meaning it can't be revealed, reported or written about yet) before it's officially sent on Tuesday as an email blast, in order for me as a journalist to formulate possible questions since Simon Camerer can't talk except for Tuesday's roundtable talk.
But then MultiChoice failed to do this. MultiChoice didn't send the pricing information, and failed to communicate anything else further around it or the process.
Cue Tuesday morning when somebody either working at MultiChoice's corporate communications division, Duma Collective, or JR Communications send out the email blast DStv price increase press release for 2022.
Who knows where it came from or who issued it - JR Communications?, Duma Collective? MultiChoice itself? - because not all media received it automatically.
Journalists had to hear from other journalists and other media that "oh, MultiChoice has issued a press release again" and "did you get it? No, did you?".
Once again I had to pick up the phone, taking initiative from my side, to communicate; to call MultiChoice, having to ask if it's possible to please get a press release - a press statement about something that MultiChoice knew I'm interested in, knew I would have wanted to receive automatically, and knew is important.
Why on earth, after decades of covering the same company, every year about the same thing, in 2022, must a journalist still once again call the same said company, once again over the very same thing, once again having to ask for the very same thing? It's very Groundhog Day tiring.
Exhausted media trying to work with MultiChoice are exasperated. Believe me, I hear their sighs as they hear mine.
Few media members still know who is who in the MultiChoice corporate communications and PR team, why there is a JR Communications and a Duma Collective, who exactly is responsible or working on what, who to ask what, and why, between all of them, the end result is that journalists and media are still completely left in the lurch on almost everything when there is something.
Between 3 different PR teams, it's a spectacular failure and indicative of real issues and problems communicating and effectively running a proficient media strategy when, between MultiChoice, the Duma Collective and JR Communications, all the right media who need it, can't get a press release like Idols letting go of judges or DStv price increases when those are issued. And this is just 2022.
Nobody seems to be knowing who exactly is doing and responsible for what.
Is Collen Dlamini who is the group executive for corporate communications at MultiChoice aware of how incredibly frustrating and confusing it is and has become the past two years for journalists who are just trying to effectively interact with the company when it comes to media queries and liaison?
Who does what, exactly? Who do you contact for what at MultiChoice? What does JR Communications do and send out and why? What exactly is Duma Collective's role? What are the contact details and names of whoever, doing whatever?
What is the contact point(s) for media on what in this never-ending whirlwind of confusion? What's been happening, isn't working, to the detriment of the MultiChoice brand and to the detriment of media unable to effectively do their work. Let's not even start of the confusing disaster for the media that is Bynder.
Somewhere, someone - or teams of people - very urgently need to get a grip and get a handle on the shambles that is MultiChoice communications to the media. The sooner the better. This is a mess and this is not okay.
