by Thinus Ferreira
This past Sunday e.tv had the time, money and made the effort for a drone to fly above the Joburg Theatre in Johannesburg for a so-called "glitzy" launch of two new local prime-time shows.
What e.tv apparently couldn't bother with was actually properly communicating with the media, and trying to get any media coverage from the dedicated group of journalists and publications covering television.
Whether it's laziness, ineptitude, incompetence, a lack of understanding basic PR best practice and how the media functions - or some type of combination of these - it remains baffling and downright shocking how e.tv once again massively dropped the ball as it chose to apparently exclude the bulk of the country's media and journalists covering television, from anything around Sunday's event for Smoke & Mirrors and Nikiwe.
e.tv's problem in my opinion - its dismal PR failure - to once again even just alert media and journalists that something like Sunday's event would be taking place (let alone invite!) and e.tv's publicity department's utter lack of even the most basic, bare-bones communication about the event to keep media informed, is not unique to eMedia.
It does however once again underscores how horrifically amateurish and bad South African broadcasters and South African streaming services are.
e.tv, as well as the SABC, VIU and MultiChoice's Mzansi Magic, M-Net, Showmax and SuperSport - all to differing degrees - compare quite badly to their international counterparts who are doing a much - much - better job at communicating with the press and building actual professional and proper PR relationships with journalists covering them and their content.
As shows like Nikiwe, from Parental Advisory Productions' Thomas Gumede and Lungile Radu, and Smoke & Mirrors replace Durban Gen and Imbewu: The Seed, e.tv couldn't be bothered in the slightest to reach out to media beforehand to set up any physical or virtual panel sessions for one-on-one or group media interviews.
e.tv - that doesn't have any online press room for publicity materials (neither does the SABC) and doesn't use any screener site - couldn't be bothered in the slightest to send media digital screeners in advance to build excitement or for review purposes, and never asked media if they would like to see an episode or more of Nikiwe or Smoke & Mirrors.
e.tv couldn't bother to provide a transcript, readout or recording of what was said by cast and crew at the event, which might yield coverage in the form of stories and reportage.
e.tv failed to stream or do any kind of online video link for the stage proceedings to stakeholders, like journalists, who were not invited, couldn't attend or might be in other cities who are interested in hearing what is being said about e.tv's new TV shows.
And make no mistake: This is basic, basic-level must-do's and must-haves. Why is it so difficult to pick up a phone and call journalists when you work in PR and communications, to say "We are having an engagement around show X" or to send any personalised email about it?
Why are basic things, which are so simple, apparently so difficult and seemingly undoable?
While those in e.tv's publicity division presumably get paid to get coverage for e.tv programming, they succeeded in achieving the exact opposite: media apathy and irritation.
e.tv also sends a very clear and powerful message: We're showing you that we don't care about getting you as media to care about our content and engaging with it, so don't.
This is how much/little we value you and the value and importance we place on our own content and in specifically getting you to give time to this, so feel free not to bother with it, and rather go and give your time and attention to those who are making an actual effort with their content.
The work week remains 7 days and the hours in a week remain fixed for journalists to cover television.
Yet, now, there are many more TV places courting South Africa's media and doing the right things, and making the right moves to get the media's attention and - even more importantly - their time.
That leaves less (or no) time for lazy, incompetent and amateur PR players who don't know the game and who don't bother about putting in the proper effort to level up to an international standard when it comes to getting coverage for local TV content.
If South African media are attending a Netflix media event, partaking in a Disney+ virtual panel session online organised for international press for new shows, or if they are watching screeners from the BBC or Discovery or HBO or Paramount or National Geographic, or doing Zoom or phone interviews and are writing and doing articles about international content, guess what?
They are not writing and not covering and not giving time to you - the local broadcaster and local TV channel and local streamer who can't bother with any proper PR effort.
Sadly, it appears that a lot of South African PR people there to promote television, still think the job is fine if they send out one-size-fits-all email blast press releases, that it's fine not to respond to media queries, that it's okay to never call, have media "events" where they are themselves in attendance but can't tell the media, and still thinks "influencers" is a substitute for press.
They are wholly clueless about much larger - and growing - circles being run around them by the international PR set.
It's utterly unconscionable that e.tv publicity - tasked to communicate with media - utterly failed to do so for Sunday's event for Nikiwe and Smoke & Mirrors, that e.tv doesn't have any press publicity site, couldn't bother with digital screeners, couldn't/didn't want longtime members of the press at the event and couldn't do any Q&A media sessions either physical or virtual.
On Sunday night, e.tv - which clearly has the media's email addresses - had the audacity to send them a download link for event-taken photographs - an event e.tv publicity didn't tell them would take place, didn't invite them to, but now thinks media will suddenly publish photos of.
Ever not been invited to a wedding or engagement party of a "friend" on Facebook, and then discovering about it through seeing wedding or engagement photos a day or days later? What does that say about the relationship?
Bizarrely, e.tv seems to want a wedding gift in the form of media coverage, for a wedding there was no invitation to, and something e.tv publicity deliberately didn't even want to, or bothered to, communicate to say that it would be taking place. How cringe.
When (or if) South African publicists working in television eventually wake up, start to do research, start to ask the media what's going on and what rival TV places are doing, they will discover that they've been left behind and fell behind with what's been happening and what's being done and what has been made accessible to South African journalists.
Local South African television deserves better and more media coverage.
Unfortunately, that requires the publicists who are sleeping at the job to wake up, to improve, to do the actual work, and to level up to the standard where the international publicity machine for television continues to operate, properly and consistently. With much better communication.
