Thinus Ferreira
On Wednesday, NBCUniversal International Networks held a launch event for its E!-replacement channel, Bravo, in Johannesburg, for just some Johannesburg-based media and influencers.
NBCUniversal International Networks & Direct-to-Consumer replaced E! with Bravo on MultiChoice's DStv channel line-up after 21 years due to two reasons.
Firstly, E! has become a zombie channel filled with repeats and little to no new content, with even E! News getting cancelled and the schedule that was shamelessly padded the last few years with shows that actually air on Bravo in the United States.
Secondly, NBCUniversal decided to get rid of its steadily worsening set of pay-TV channels - a collection that includes E! - into a new company called Versant. So, NBCUniversal no longer runs E! or wants anything to do with it.
Cue Bravo which remains within the NBCUniversal stable as one of its TV channels, as the new E! placeholder.
Bravo isn't suddenly on DStv because it's "better".
Bravo simply replaces E! because of corporate changes and decisions that watered down E! (NBCUniversal decided to no longer invest in content for E! in the way it did before), after which NBCUniversal decided to get rid of E! that it no longer considers valuable.
Indicative of the sorry state of traditional pay-TV entropy and just how far things have really fallen: Wednesday's Bravo launch event held at Four Seasons, The Westcliff in Parktown was only for Johannesburg media and influencers (and even within that, an incomplete subset with some media not even made aware something would be taking place).
In bygone years, a place like NBCUniversal International Networks - especially for the "launch" and introduction of new TV channel - would have ensured it had all relevant media there. This time - not so much.
Instead, NBCUniversal International Networks which hasn't held any upfront or even roundtable press interactions with South Africa's media in years, focused on getting "personalities" - likely social media notables who would "amplify" its Bravo launch event with tweets and Insta-posts into the ether.
What was said at Wednesday's NBCU Bravo launch with Thulane Hadebene isn't known - nothing about what happened there, was shown there, or said there, had been shared or communicated a day later by Thursday afternoon.
The media launch event included a screening of an episode of the upcoming The Real Housewives of London, as well as a question and answer session with the personalites who appear in the second season of the South African version of Dating #NoFilter South Africa.
Either Marco Giusti, senior vice president of marketing for NBCUniversal International Networks in London was physically present in person at Wednesday's Bravo Africa launch or did some pre-recorded video message, but also what he had to say was solely just for those who were physically at the channel launch event.
NBCUniversal couldn't make any of this accessible to media, or actually even worse, lacked the insight that perhaps media not physically present at Wednesday's event might have an interest, or might be instrumental in hearing what happens and is said, and reporting that out.
The last time NBCUniversal International Networks properly bothered and managed to engage the media in South Africa was exactly three years ago in October 2022 with the addition of Universal+ to DStv.
The Universal+ launch just three years ago wasn't even a TV channel "launch" - yet compare what NBCUniversal International Networks still bothered to do then and how it communicated and involved the news media, compared to now.
Since then NBCUniversal International Networks seems to have continued to devolve into a type of sad situation where it's about "the less, the better" when it comes to promotion and everything around its channels set in South Africa and Africa.
How many South Africans appear constantly across the different iterations of the Below Deck franchise (on E! and now on Bravo)? How many interviews with any of those people, or media roundtables, have appeared on been done with South African press over the past years?
And it's not for a lack of asking and trying on the part of the media.
The way that Bravo was "launched" as an E!-takeover with little regard to actually involve, communicate with and taking the broader and real media covering it, with it on a journey, further underscores the headshaking devolution and devaluing of NBCUniversal International Networks and what's left of its pay-TV brands.
What a bad first Bravo impression (that will be quite lasting).
Yet, given how NBCUniversal International Networks has drifted over recent years from trying to interact with South African media to a much more laissez-faire approach, it's a bad first impression that isn't actually surprising.
Thinking back to how NBCUniversal launched E! on DStv 21 years ago - and I was there and can fully compare - the start and launch of Bravo is regressive and perfunctory and looks very badly done.
How much has the world and technology changed since NBCUniversal launched E! in South Africa two decades ago and had a media launch event for the channel with the late Lebo Mathosa?
And yet, it's still connection - and real connection and communication that's valued, and that truly gets results.
Was it too much effort, too costly, too cumbersome and too difficult for NBCUniversal International Networks to organise a simple virtual for all of South Africa's media about Bravo?
To get any three South Africans from across the franchises and seasons of Below Deck to do a Zoom roundtable with media and a Q&A about their experiences? To introduce a NBCUniversal International Networks executive or PR - anyone! - to South Africa's journalists covering TV in a basic meet-and-greet, and to talk about NBCU's plans and content for its channels and Bravo?
That is what gets traction, that is what media require, that is what will get coverage and create a good impression and engender positivity towards a "new" TV channel called Bravo. Not champagne-sipping influencers showing up for self-interested selfies at a Fenty "beauty station" and sniffing Carolina Herrera's Good Girl, who will never truly care.
Should there suddenly be a "bravo" for Bravo conveniently showing up from NBCUniversal International Networks on DStv? How about rather a big boo for a botched fail.
