IS THERE A RED DOT SALE? DStv Media Sales is the new name of Oracle Airtime Sales. But what a really UGLY new logo.

DStv Media Sales is the new name of Oracle Airtime Sales (OATS), the advertising sales arm of MultiChoice.

DStv Media Sales also has a new logo that sadly looks like an amateur mish-mash of clashing and repulsive colours, seems to incorporate every shape from a circle to an ellips (just not a block) thrown together, and a font addition (IN CAPS!) that doesn't make sense at all. Remember: new people or possible clients who see your logo don't know, remember (or frankly care) how you looked before, and how that infused the new logo.

The new DStv Media Sales logo that looks horrible to me, makes so many questions bubble to the surface: Where are you supposed to look? What first grabs your eye (and what should)? Why does this logo look like something that belongs on the side of an experimental satellite rocket South Africa tried to build in the 80's? And finally: Is there a red dot sale going on somewhere I don't know about?

In place of the graceful Oracle Airtime Sales logo that was evocative of an eye (symbolically in keeping with viewing things, because this is television) there is a massive red dot. Yes. Just like the Japanese flag. Why keep this bit out of the old logo and make it the most prominent element because of its size and colour but then position and misuse it so that it seem like the very part that least belongs in the new logo? I'm not an iconographer but I can tell you the colour of the ellips - now turquiose - should be the same colour as whatever its symbolically encapsulating. Sadly the ellips is not the colour of the dot or of the ''writing''. The whole shebangle literally screams in colour terms. And its not a good scream.

It's hard to fathom what DStv Media Sales actually wants the new logo to say. What does the logo communicate visually and non-verbally in a symbolic sense? Sadly in my opinion, very little. It looks to me like one akward Russian company merged with another and were forced to come up with something of each that makes very little sense. Like the hybrid creatures on the island of Doctor Moreau.

The ALL CAPS doesn't exude understated confidence (which is what you'd rather want to portray if you're in sales and want to make a great first impression) but conveys in-your-face jimble-jamble. Positioned so close to the beautiful futuristic liqui sans serif font of the word ''DStv'', it gives an overall clashing impression. The sets of type just don't fit. Your eyes unconsciously tell you the D's and the S's in the logo don't look the same - that something is ''wrong''. It comes across as unrefined.

In my opinion DStv Media Sales should relook their new logo, definitely simplify the colour scheme, go for a more unitone palette, and drop or do something different with that little bit of Tokyo. DStv Media Sales represents quality and premium brands who live and breathe in the very visual videosphere. Their logo (in our hyper visual world) should reflect that.

Premier Soccer League (PSL) rights help to drive MultiChoice's DStv subscriber growth in black households for the DStv Compact bouquet.

SuperSport's PSL broadcasting rights is one strong factor fuelling MultiChoice's DStv subscriber growth under especially black households, now accounting for 1,332 million of MultiChoice's total South African DStv subscribers.

According to Oracle Airtime Sales (OATS) Supersport's PSL rights since 2007 has had a influence in driving the uptake of MultiChoice's DStv Compact bouquet. ''"We have experienced a 100% growth in subscriptions during the first 18 months of that acquisition," says sales director Fahmeeda Cassim-Surtee, OATS sales director.

BREAKING. Five 2010 FIFA World Cup matches have so far pulled a viewership audience of over 1 million on SuperSport 3.

Five 2010 FIFA World Cup matches have so far attracted a South African TV audience of more than 1 million on the SuperSport 3 channel.

SA vs Uruguay (1,383 million), SA vs Mexico (1,197 million), Spain vs Switzerland (1,127 million), Argentina vs Nigeria (1,114 million) and England vs USA (1,080 million) brought the bacon home for SuperSport 3 (DStv 203) by each pulling more than 1 million viewers.

Whenever Bafana Bafana is playing in the 2010 FIFA World Cup, sport is the genre on DStv that retains the biggest audience share on that particular day, says Oracle Airtime Sales (OATS). The SA vs Mexico and Netherlands vs Denmark games also had the greatest percentage of female viewers so far.

BREAKING. DStv subscribers to grow by 11% - Oracle.

Nope, not the Oracle of Dephi, rather Oracle Airtime Sales (OATS), the sales arm of MultiChoice who today predicted that DStv subscribers will increase by 11% from 1,63 million to 2,104 million viewers in 2010.

According to Oracle (OATS), the number of subscribers of the cheaper DStv option, DStv Compact is set to grow a massive 113% from 274 000 to 584 000, representing more than a quarter (27%) of the entire universe of subscribers who have access to DStv.

Oracle (OATS) says the number of black households who are DStv Compact subscribers have increased from 40% to 46,5% which shows a huge demand and a very quick uptake under middle class black households of this very popular DStv bouquet.

Meanwhile the average viewership for all DStv channels have increased by 21%.