by Thinus Ferreira
MultiChoice tells TVwithThinus that there will still be a 2021 MultiChoice Content Showcase event in 2021 for the South African media and that the pay-TV operator plans to and will still do another content showcase press event this year despite having not done such an event in August.
MultiChoice in South Africa previously held MultiChoice Content Showcase media events for South Africa's gaggle of journalists covering television in person.
Sometimes it happened twice a year, including a December one (2019 was the last year for a bi-annual showcase with one that took place in December 2019 as well).
These useful and valuable MultiChoice Content Showcase media events have always been multi-day junkets, with MultiChoice rolling out its own content and IT executives as well as M-Net content and channel bosses to talk about technology developments, new content slates, and with some third-party TV channels also presenting.
The media would also get to sit in on some selected panel sessions with Q&A's with some on-air talent from certain selected new and upcoming shows.
MultiChoice executives and channel execs have also been available to answer questions from the media, with questions that are often things that DStv subscribers and the public are wondering about or want to get clarity on.
MultiChoice SA switched to a virtual and severely truncated 2020 MultiChoice Content Showcase last year as a televised presentation in August 2020. It was also a one-day only event lasting just a few hours.
The 2020 showcase, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, was hugely scaled down - a far cry from when brands ranging from SuperSport and BBC Studios Africa, to A+E Networks Africa, M-Net, kykNET, Discovery Inc., ViacomCBS and others would get specific days and timeslots to make presentations about their content and upcoming new programming to the media.
Announcements made during the 2020 MultiChoice Content Showcase like a new DStv Streama decoder never materialised and became so-called "vapourware". Other new DStv pop-up channels were announced of which launch dates were pushed out and details later confusingly changed.
Besides the South African MultiChoice Content Showcase which is where the pay-TV operator's concept originated, MultiChoice Africa successfully copied it with MultiChoice Content Showcase events that have been taking place in various other African countries, done in Southern Africa as well as East Africa and West Africa.
Several virtual MultiChoice Content Showcase events took place earlier this year in some countries outside of South Africa, with MultiChoice also staging physical, in-person MultiChoice Showcase events in countries like Ethiopia, Zambia and others.
Several South African readers, as well as South African journalists, have been asking for months about whether, and when, MultiChoice will be doing another MultiChoice Content Showcase in South Africa specifically.
Expectations grew before August, as well as during August, but MultiChoice did nothing and also didn't communicate anything to the press about whether there would be a content showcase or that it has been postponed.
Until now there's just been silence about something that MultiChoice, through repetition, created an expectation over with the media.
In response to a media query from TVwithThinus this week about whether a MultiChoice Content Showcase for this year has been cancelled, or might be going ahead, MultiChoice confirms that the pay-TV operator "will have its showcase this year".
"We will share dates and
details with the media in due course," MultiChoice said.
