by Thinus Ferreira
Ask any 9-year-old having a birthday party when you need to invite your friends if you want the best chance to get kids to attend and want to maximise the percentage chance of actual attendance ... then please send that kid to the South African public broadcaster to help them.
Believe it or not - although, really really believe it - that the SABC on Tuesday afternoon at 2:16pm sent out a media invitation to a SABC content showcase media event in Johannesburg... for Wednesday morning 08am.
In an extremely unprofessional and completely ri-di-cu-lous manner, the SABC gave South Africa's media covering TV, less than 18 hours notice in its "summons" that it would be doing a content showcase media event today, Wednesday 9 November, about what SABC1, SABC2 and SABC3 will be showing in the summer months ahead.
It's not as if journalists all sit at home and just wait for something to do or something to go to.
Somehow it just doesn't seem to register with the SABC team organising this and liaising with media, that journalists already have pre-set deadlines.
Media have work that must be handed in on Wednesday, already have pre-arranged interviews set up for Wednesday, and already have a litany of other arrangements and "to do"-lists - the bulk of which will have been arranged and diarised a week or even weeks ago already.
If anyone - anyone - still wonders why coverage on and of the SABC is constantly, predominantly, about its beleaguered finances, its problems, its executives, its (non-existent) board and other corporate matters and not about its content and what the SABC is actually showing and doing on television, you have the reason.
It is because the SABC doesn't communicate and doesn't know how to properly communicate about its content to South Africa's media.
On Wednesday the SABC is spending - wasting? - money on a SABC content showcase held at Langham Estate in Fourways in Johannesburg, but who will actually be attending? Who would have, and could have, attended if the SABC actually bothered to communicate with the media and with journalists in a professional way?
Who will Merlin Naicker as SABC TV boss actually stand before and talk to? "Influencers" who come for the wine and leisurely afternoon sun? Who could he have talked to if media had an actual proper heads-up in order to plan to attend? It's beyond embarrassing.
Who will report what acting SABC1 channel head Thulisile Nhlapo, SABC2 channel head Gerhard Pretorius, and SABC3 channel head Pat van Heerden are actually saying? Where will South Africa's TV and film industry read and hear what they've said and have spoken about - if not into the wind?
Once again the SABC's biggest enemy is the SABC itself in frustrating and antagonising journalists, inflicting damage on its image and brand, and pro-actively fostering and creating a negative attitude in the minds of the media.
What sane journalist from what publication or media is going to say: "The way the SABC interacts is normal. The way the SABC communicates is appropriate. The way the SABC organises a media event and invites journalists is proper and industry standard".
Absolutely nobody.
Why is it chaos again? Why is it so bad again? Why is everything so haphazardly done (yet again)? Why is money being spent again and why is there again not going to be any remote return on investment (ROI) from a marketing and publicity standpoint?
You cannot cannot "summon" journalists to something like a SABC content showcase ... the afternoon before.
What unprofessional adults are let loose in what broadcaster or PR agency where you think this is a realistic, professional way of doing things, and going to yield results or attendance?
Even more preposterous - the SABC Summer Content Showcase is set for .... 08:00 to 17:00.
Who in their right mind thinks that you can invite media the afternoon before, to come and spend their whole day - NINE HOURS - at Langham Estate? To what?
Who exactly are the people who think journalists don't have actual other work or jobs and can suddenly, at the drop of an 18-hour notice hat, suddenly go and "lounge" for the day and attend a whole day event with little notification?
Wake up! Get help! You're clearly clueless, amateurish and incompetent, clearly have no idea and no business being in the line of work your in interacting with media.
This is the worst way imaginable to try and engage the media and doing so-called "media engagement".
Instead of the publication of this opinion piece (which ironically the SABC actively caused) there could have been or would have been articles about what the SABC is doing in the TV content space on SABC1, SABC2 and SABC3.
Instead, media is actively angered and pushed away, while their job is made more difficult trying to cover and report on the SABC's TV content. Why is the SABC not working hard(er) to lessen the friction, to lower the barrier, and to make it easier and make media want to report on its television programming?
Quite coincidentally, the same thing happened with MultiChoice's badly done 2022 MultiChoice Content Showcase in September at Montecasino that the bulk of South Africa's press and biggest media houses decided to flat-out ignore, not reporting on anything shared about DStv because of MultiChoice's flawed corporate communication with media about it.
The message the SABC is inadvertently sending to media and journalists by inviting them at 2:16pm in the afternoon to something like a content showcase the next morning at 8am (that will go until 5pm) is the "we're a bunch of people who don't know better and don't care to know do better".
The SABC is telling journalists that it doesn't know how to do a media event and when to invite journalists, and doesn't see anything wrong with asking people in the afternoon to come over tomorrow because the assumption is that there's nothing else or nothing better to do than waste a day.
It's beyond the pale that in the year 2022 a place like the SABC - that wants coverage for its content - self-sabotages its own intent to showcase its content, by actively frustrating the very media it's trying to court to give exposure to its upcoming programming. It's downright damaging its brand reputation and media relationships with the press.
What a shocking - disappointing - mess. A relationship damaging mess that the SABC is quite literally paying real money for.
