by Thinus Ferreira
Yet another new telenovela is being rolled out this evening on e.tv, but the days of e.tv publicity actually properly engaging journalists and reaching out proactively to various media in trying to cover e.tv programming like this show, is apparently over.
For The Land of Mills & Money, I was emailed a trailer on 13 August. That's it.
Maybe there were more. I don't know.
As a journalist I can't know what I don't know (and unfortunately, yet again) there was nobody from e.tv who bothered to reach out to hear, or check, or have any kind of interaction or communication before the Grounded Productions show starts tonight on e.tv, with executive producers Thomas Gumede and Khanyi Nxumalo.
It used to be that e.tv's PR department knew journalists' faces, met them, engaged with them regularly, built real-world relationships with them over time, invited media from across South Africa when new soaps, telenovelas and drama series were starting, did upfront presentations, sent screener episodes, held media educationals, emailed weekly and monthly programming schedules, and invited media to episode recordings and set visits.
Now e.tv is apparently down to mass mailer emails, and you're lucky if you get it (unless it doesn't even reach you because of some bounce-back you don't even know about).
Similar to what I consider to be a very low-level start of both eGagasini from Stained Glass TV and The Four of Us from Tshedza Pictures, The Land of Mills & Money arrives this evening, in my opinion, with a seemingly very "blegh"-attitude from e.tv of basically "whatever".
The start of new primetime, local shows - soaps and telenovelas used to be a "thing" for e.tv.
Similarly, it was as important for e.tv to get buy-in from media across the country (since viewers are from across the country) for its shows as a national TV channel. Apparently not so anymore.
After e.tv's cancellation and TV cupboard scrubbing of Scandal!, House of Zwide and Kelders van Geheime, I've been waiting to see the effort that e.tv would put into trying to promote and publicise the blocks of its new local primetime line-up.
Especially given the fact that everything familiar vanished in one go, to be replaced wholesale as a new block on e.tv's primetime line-up.
But what a disappointment.
After these well-known shows got culled by e.tv executives, all together and were replaced by stuff nobody knows, since they're brand-new, you'd think (correctly) that these new shows and programming need as much oxygen from the media covering television and film in the country as they can possibly grab.
Instead, it appears that e.tv's attempt the past few months with eGagasini, The Four of Us and now with The Land of Mills & Money has been lacklustre, inept and a far cry from what e.tv used to do.
While traditional linear TV (in South Africa as well!) is under threat, broadcasters like the SABC, e.tv, M-Net and Mzansi Magic shouldn't shrink away and do less while streamers, other platforms and American broadcasters invade, but fight even harder and level up in the time and attention game when it comes to media covering their content.
Alas, it appears as if e.tv has forgotten how to fight, has failed to adapt, has lost institutional programming publicity memory, is just not willing to do the basics of what is required in 2026 to get the press' attention in the way it used to - or, quite likely, all of the above.
Where were the set tour and visits for national media for eGagasini, The Four of Us or The Land of Mills & Honey like what e.tv did in previous years for other shows? Or is this a thing of the past? Is it now just influencers?
Where are the emails that are supposed to fill the inboxes of journalists, asking: Do you want to maybe interview a Helga Palmer or a Marlon Davids or a Vuyelwa Booi about programming strategy, or the latest content or a specific show? Or pitches about reporting about eVOD? About Openview?
What is now happening, or no longer happening, when it comes to new shows starting on e.tv, and who communicates how things are now done or not done?
Why is nobody calling, messaging, WhatsApping or emailing in the weeks before a new local show starts, to ask "Do you want to speak so and so?", "What stories and interviews and coverage are you interested in doing?", "Here's what we're planning for this new show and this is when this and this and this will happen"?
There's none of that.
While international broadcasters, studios and production companies are falling over each other to reach ouot to South Africa's press covering TV to offer Zooms and Teams press junkets, with virtual roundtable interviews ahead of new shows with producers, writers and cast members all eager to speak, a broadcaster like e.tv has fallen very far behind and basically out of the attention and traction game.
It costs nothing, yet e.tv couldn't bother to set up a Zoom with the media not based in Johannesburg and not invited to whatever, to do interviews and roundtable engagements with producers, cast or crew of For Land of Mills & Money.
Neither did it happen for the other shows e.tv launched this year to anchor its new primetime.
It doesn't cost anything but time and intent, but e.tv hasn't bothered with a Zoom since Covid. Perhaps nobody knows that this is now what is being done as just one, but yet another integral part of promoting and publicising your TV show.
My inbox is full of emailed digital screeners for upcoming content - from both local South African shows, as well as international series, documentaries and films. All of these email links implore: "Watch me! See me! Review me! Write about me!"
But e.tv? Nothing.
Nobody bothered to ask "Do you maybe want to see the first episode of The Land of Mills & Money?", "If you've watched it, are there people you might want to interview?" "If you've watched it, what did you think of it?"
Whether viewers will connect with The Land of Mills & Money on e.tv, nobody knows, but in my opinion, e.tv has again dropped the ball in mounting even a semblance of properly trying to get press for it in all the right ways that would matter and result in an actual return on investment in publicity effort.
Perhaps it's a sign of the times.
Perhaps influencers are now what matter more than the actual reporting and coverage of TV shows.
Perhaps just muddling on and no longer bothering with TV critics and media and journalists who do real and proper coverage of television is just the lazy pivot that fits into a new and neat lazy era of reels and mass mailer email blasts that's supposed to count as (and replaced real) "media engagement".
It's just sad to me that e.tv seems to no longer care like it used to.
I was there and remembered and covered it when e.tv launched big tentpoles like Backstage, Scandal!, Rhythm City, Ashes to Ashes and others over the past decades, with publicists who called, who emailed with tailored suggestions and stories. Who engaged.
Now, something like The Land of Mills & Money starts on e.tv, in a primetime slot, will likely run at least 200 or 260 episodes as a multi-million rand production and investment looking to get ratings, and what you get is one email (if you're lucky).
Like, in The Mask, when Jim Carrey's Stanley is frantically trying to get his doggie Milo to reach the jail window, he gets impatient with the dog's smaller hops.
In a similar way, you feel like you want to shout: "Come on, Milo, put some effort into it!"
