Whoever is doing MultiChoice's in-house promos for various DStv programming clearly isn't watching television.
The embarrassing problems and actually very obvious mistakes continue unabated on DStv with problematic promos for programming from various channels that makes from cringe-watching and eye-rolling.
MultiChoice is quick for instance to run a promo to tell viewers to tune in for the "bloodsuckers" of the 7th season of The Vampire Diairies on Vuzu AMP (DStv 114) on Wednesdays at 21:30.
Whoever received and checked the promo at MultiChoice and then scheduled it for high rotation is clearly clueless and from looking at it, I can tell that no proper verification and quality control took place, and whoever made it doesn't know better or doesn't care either.
After I last month noted the embarrassing mistakes in DStv on-air promos don't think they've gone away.
Watch the DStv promo fillers for a while and you can almost invent a drinking game around it - like guessing what channel's programming promo will have a mistake, or what type of mistake it's going be.
It's sad that for instance a promo for MultiChoice is made to market DStv and Vuzu AMP, goes through several people, wrongly passes through several gatekeepers who presumably is tasked with checking every detail; and that it then ends up on air - and is wrong.
Who signs off on these mistakes? Who gets paid money to get stuff wrong? It's like continuing to bring the wrong food to someone's table in a restaurant.
On and in television, what is shown and what you show is your brand.
If it's wrong, then your brand is wrong and off-message. It speaks to your reputation, to whether the picture that is printed on the outside wrapper correlates to the product inside.
If you cared and actually followed or even watched the show you want other people to watch, you'd know that a cast pic of The Vampire Diaries with Nina Dobrev for the 7th season is passé (and wrong and old).
The dear Nina Dobrev left The Vampire Diaries at the end of the 6th season already - she announced it way back in April, and her final appearance was in mid-May. DStv didn't get the memo.
How do you prevent this? You employ and use people who actually watch television (there's lots of them), or you check things against and read this thing called "Wikipedia".
How on earth does a promo board for Veep from M-Net Edge (DStv 102) with Julia Louis-Dreyfus for instance make it to air on DStv (and get used often) saying "Vice president of the United" with a word missing, and get used for such a long time with nobody noticing, caring or correcting it?
To the point that Julia Louis-Dreyfus' character actually becomes the president in the story and the same promo still being used, saying, "vice president of the United" ...
A large part of television, like the fashion industry, like what Plascon and Dulux sell, like Pantene, is how things look. It's the currency. What does it mean and convey when what you show - like in a promo - is wrong and has mistakes in it?
Is it mere nitpicking? Is it overhyping? Why bother about the details of things? Why care? Why shouldn't everyone just be fine with generalised almost-right images and not-quite-right promos?
Think of what Coco Chanel once famously said: "Dress shabbily and they remember the dress; dress impeccably and they remember the woman."
On-air promos, especially on and for DStv should be impeccable. Just like the "real" content, for instance an episode of a show, it sells the brand too.
It's so incredibly painful to think that there's people who work in television who are not actually watching television, people working with television who don't really care about it, and people selling and marketing television who don't actually know or themselves engage with the actual content of it.
It's a shame.
