So, Viacom International Media Networks Africa is having a Media Day today - but not for everyone. And OgilvyPR invited the press to it less than a day before.

Viacom International Media Networks Africa (VIMN Africa) is having a Media Day today for press and TV critics - but its not for everyone.

VIMN Africa's Media Education Day ironically comes just as VIMN Africa cut BET International from StarSat's channel line-up yesterday without saying a single word about it to any media, and with the very incompetent-looking OgilvyPR inviting media to the "Day" less than 24 hours before the time to this media educational.

Yesterday, literally less than 24 hours before VIMN Africa's Media Day, OgilvyPR invited "a few key media - including yourself!" to its Media Day taking place today at its Viacom Headquarters in Hyde Park, Johannesburg.

I was perplexed.

Who in the world and what PR company or broadcaster invites media at such terrible short notice to something like a "Media Day"?

Only the struggling SABC sends out urgent notifications to the press for press conferences and when it happens its always as part of crisis communication and trying to deflect and minimise some or other scandal type news like astronomical salaries of Generations or some other management drama.

Keep in mind that this isn't public television channels. This is supposed premium TV channels made available on premium pay-TV platforms like MultiChoice's DStv service.

It's perhaps just my (very wrong) perception, but I have this attitude and perception that a TV content supplier like Viacom and its channels like MTV and BET and Nickelodeon should be better and know better and communicate better than what a small community TV channel knows and does.

When I told OgilvyPR's Ashveer Kewalpershad that of course I'm in Cape Town as OgilvyPR knows very well since its their job to know the media and what journalists and publications are about, I was told that, no, its only for Johannesburg press - no Cape Town or Durban or any other journalists covering television nationally.

Uhm. so why the very lame invitation, less than 24 hours before to "key media - including yourself!" when it's not really true or meant for me?

Laziness? Incompetence? Cluelessness? Or a combination of that or just a silly little mistake?

It's really shocking how media companies like VIMN Africa headed up by boss Alex Okosi who runs its operations in South Africa would actually spend money to not build relationships and trust and have a real media connection with press, but actively damage and worsen it.

I don't feel better about Viacom International Media Networks Africa and have more respect for them today. 

Thanks to VIMN Africa and OgilvyPR and the shoddy and unprofessional way they deal with the press what I think today has actively been made worse.

I think less of Viacom in Africa and their level of professionalism that what I thought yesterday before 09:36 in the morning.

So does several other TV critics and journalists covering VIMN Africa, their channels and their content, who all know, all spoke, and all rolled their eyes about today's "Media Day".  

Forget that TV critics and media covering Viacom's channels and programming from MTV Base, BET, MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central and a range of other channels and who are not in Johannesburg are not attending.

It's that I can basically take a big bet that the information shared won't even be distributed to press afterwards who are not there and can't be there.

Last year VIMN Africa did do a similar "upfront" and did do it in Johannesburg and Cape Town (that I did attended). This year ... nothing outside of the Johannesburg educational day.

And to "invite" press but not really "inviting" them is hilariously pathetic.

If that's how a company does business and thinks press management and public relations is going to "improve" its standing with the media, continue on in blissful ignorance.

OgilvyPR said yesterday Alex Okosi "and his team will share their journey of the past 10 years and their vision for the next decade" and give "exclusive insights into behaviour patterns and how the Super Consumer" consumes TV.

Well, maybe this Super Consumer of TV can give some insight to OgilvyPR and VIMN Africa. It is after all apparently an Education Day at Viacom Africa.

It would be this: Perhaps more can be done by VIMN Africa and its PR to improve and properly develop, maintain and grow true media relationships with "key media - including yourself!" in the next 10 years. 

All the brand campaigns and niceties VIMN Africa and any other broadcaster can do or comes up with pales in comparison to actually knowing the media and journalists and TV critics who have an interest in and cover your brands and content and building real relationships with them instead of "one size fits all" fake invitations and emails.

To tell TV critics and media that "you are cordially invited to attend an exclusive Media Education Day" that is totally bogus, does more damage and long-term destruction to Viacom International Media Networks Africa's reputation under the press that what VIMN Africa and OgilvyPR probably even realise.

Over the past 16 years I've covered television and the TV industry in South Africa and I've seen VIMN Africa arrive and expand.

I've seen OgilvyPR arrive and wanting to do "public relations" for television brands like MultiChoice and Viacom (and heaven help us even Domestos whose totally irrelevant media invitations are also sent to me and other TV critics although its not what I'm covering or interested in at all).

TV brands and their PR teams can unlock a greater win-win solution for everybody if they actually care a bit more and bother to actually engage with stakeholders and relevant media and truly get to know them, what they do, and who they are.

Perhaps Viacom Headquarters in Hyde Park and OgilvyPR over the course of the next 10 years ahead can improve a bit on this crucial aspect. 

The "future of television" isn't just a presentation for an Education Day. It also includes building, maintaining and shaping real media relationships in a real world. 

Every day.

MTN FrontRow video-on-demand service rebranded as VU as its drops its prices to compete with ShowMax, ONTAPtv.com and VIDI.

MTN is rebranding its MTN FrontRow service as VU and dropping prices in a bid to try and lure more customers to its subscription video-on-demand (SVoD) service.

 

MTN FrontRow that is now VU (pronounced "view") is clinging on in a South African SVoD market quickly getting saturated and where broadband data costs remain stubbornly high and already claimed its first victim in the form of Altron's misguided Altech Node which became the first major failure.

 

Then there's The Times Media Group's VIDI that's already struggling after it launched at the end of last year with Tiso Blackstar that is disinvesting from the venture. 

Meanwhile Netflix is set to launch sometime in 2016 in South Africa. 

China's PCCW Global is operating the SVoD service ONTAPtv.com since September and Naspers' ShowMax that launched in August is expected to expand within months beyond South Africa's borders into other countries.

 

Besides the name change, MTN's VU that has content from six of the big Hollywood studios, is dropping its prices to now match rivals like ShowMax and ONTAPtv.com and all existing MTN FrontRow subscribers will be moved to VU.

 

VU streams content in standard definition (SD) and five devices can be linked to one VU account. VU subscribers can pay by credit card, have the amount due deducted from their prepaid airtime or bill it to their MTN account.

 

The new VU now has three packages: MaxVU (R99 per month), PremiereVU (no monthly subscription; individual movie rental ranging between R15 and R27), and WeekendVU (R39 per weekend, with access to movies rentals).

 

MTN rival Vodacom that is in talks with Netflix, is expected to announce its own VOD and integrated SVoD service within the first half of 2016.

M-Net apologises and says it's sorry for 'offensive and wrong' Our Perfect Wedding episode on Mzansi Magic that celebrates 'rape culture entertainment'.

The M-Net channel Mzansi Magic and the production company Connect TV are apologising for broadcasting the shocking Sunday episode of Our Perfect Wedding featuring a groom who confessed how he targeted children for sex, saying the content “was clearly offensive and wrong”.

A massive viewer furore followede the broadcast of the shocking Our Perfect Wedding episode on Mzansi Magic (DStv 161) on Sunday, leading to Absa abruptly pulling out as sponsor of the show as well as complaints to and an investigation by the Broadcasting Complaints Commission of South Africa (BCCSA).

Viewers slammed the show as "a disgusting shame" and romanticising "rape culture as entertainment".

Mzansi Magic has now said it is pulling all repeats of the specific Our Perfect Wedding episode that’s also made available on MultiChoice's DStv Catch Up video-on-demand service and pushed to subscriber’s decoders. 

Our Perfect Wedding showed "Fanie" telling viewers how he sexed school children as a 28-year old taxi driver and how his now wife had to compete for his attention.

Our Perfect Wedding on its official Facebook said bride Bavelile – as if she was in a reality show – “has outwitted, outplayed and outlasted all the women vying for Fanie's affections".

"Mzansi Magic and its production company, Connect TV, wish to apologise for airing the episode of Our Perfect Wedding that was broadcast on 29 November," the pay-TV M-Net that supplies channels like Mzansi Magic to MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV platform, in a statement on Tuesday afternoon.

"While we strive to produce quality, compelling content for our viewers, we realise more should have been done in the production and airing of this particular episode as its subject matter is clearly offensive and wrong".

"While the airing of our programmes does not mean we condome the behaviour included in them, we are reviewing our processes to ensure that this type of content is not a part of our programming schedule in the future".

China and South Africa call for greater media cooperation at Naspers and StarTimes' 1st China-Africa Media Leadership Summit.

China and South Africa echoed their mutual and growing media appreciation and called for even greater media cooperation between the two countries at the start of the first ever China-Africa Media Leadership Summit held in Cape Town today.

The media summit, with South Africa's Naspers and China's StarTimes as co-organisers, comes on the eve of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation taking place in Johannesburg on 3 and 4 December, with China's president Xi Jinping visiting South Africa after a two day visit to Zimbabwe.

More than 200 professionals and delegates from South Africa, from across Africa and from the People's Republic of China – 43 countries in total – are attending today's summit at the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC) with representatives from newspapers, TV, radio and new media organisations attending. 

China and South Africa kicked off the media summit with both countries calling for greater media cooperation.

Jeff Radebe, the minister in the presidency, who called the summit a "historic moment" for Chinese and South African media, urged South Africa media to "take the splendid opportunity" to establish new "win-win strategies" to strengthen Sino-African relationships and asked China to help with media capacity development in Africa and South Africa.

Kang Yong, the Chinese consul-general to Cape Town said China has been Africa's largest trading partner since 2009. 

"[China's TV news channel] CCTV News has set up a news production centre in Africa; StarTimes has more than 6 million subscribers across Africa. I sincerely hope that Chinese and African media can work together to tell our stories together."

Kang Yong said that China and Africa in the past had been much maligned in international news coverage and said he hoped that Africa and China can set up more channels and platforms for "pragmatic cooperation" since these countries "have to tell their own stories".

Pang XinXing, president of the StarTimes pay-TV group said the media summit should be held on a regular basis to build media cooperation between China and African media.

Jiang Jianguo, minister of China's State Council Information Office (SCIO) said Chinese and African media should stand together to condemn terrorism.

"I hope Chinese and African media will innovate in the pursuit of journalism and report on the real stories of the context between African and Chinese people and how Chinese cooperation has benefitted people on both sides".

He said China's StarTimes and South Africa's Naspers have set good examples with mutual investment in Africa and China.

China has become Africa's largest trading partner and has offered loans totaling $32 billion to African nations the past two years.

Mzansi Magic and Our Pefrect Wedding slammed for glamourising 'rape culture as entertainment'; Absa abruptly pulls its sponsorship as Mzansi Magic pulls the episode.

Viewer fury has engulfed M-Net's Mzansi Magic (DStv 161) channel over the show Our Perfect Wedding that shocked viewers are slamming as a "disgusting shame" and said is "romanticising rape culture" with Absa that immediate withdrew its sponsorship of the show.

The barrage of complaints comes as the M-Net channel aired the last two episodes - this past Sunday's one taking things even further than the previous Sunday - proudly glamourising a groom who told of how he met his wife when she was just 14 and preyed on young girls.

Our Perfect Wedding showed "Fanie" telling viewers how he sexed school children as a 28-year old taxi driver and how his now wife had to compete for his attention.

Our Perfect Wedding on its official Facebook  said bride Bavelile - as if she was in a reality show - "has outwitted, outplayed and outlasted all the women vying for Fanie's affections".

Our Perfect Wedding, produced by Connect TV owned by Basetsana Kumalo of SABC3's Top Billing fame, stoked the fires of viewers' discontent while none of the tone-deaf M-Net executives, commissioning editors and on-air quality control checkers apparently saw anything wrong with broadcasting the latest episode in the middle of the national 16 Days of Activism Against Women and Child Abuse campaign.

At least once complaint has been formally laid with the Broadcasting Complaints Commission of South Africa (BCCSA) over Our Perfect Wedding and Absa abruptly pulled its sponsorship of the show on Monday that viewers slammed for condoning and glamourising statutory rape.

"We have withdrawn our sponsorship of Our Perfect Wedding with immediate effect. We have informed Mzansi Magic," says Byron Kennedy, Absa's head of media.

In a statement the Change Drivers' Network and the Sexual Reproductive Justice Coalition of South Africa slams Mzansi Magic and Connect TV, saying "considering the rate of sexual abuse in South Africa, it is disturbing to note how Our Perfect Wedding normalises this behaviour and turned it into a love story".

"It is unacceptable and as young leaders who deal with such issues every day, the ACTIVATE! Network demands that action be taken in this regard".

"Rape culture is so normalised and in a country like ours with the type of statistics around rape and gender based violence it is highly disturbing what we were shown on Mzansi Magic," says dr Tlaleng Mofokeng.

"Perverts and self confessed paedophiles get rewarded with a TV show on Mzansi Magic and nobody in the production saw anything wrong with the narrative."

"We are meant to be standing up for women and children who are abused. How is this episode in anyway assisting with this? How is this empowering to black women and children to stand up for what is right?"

"When we air shows that use content of rape and rape culture as entertainment we spit on the face of the law and people who are abused," says Tlaneng Mofokeng.

Mzansi Magic didn't bother to respond to specific questions regarding Our Perfect Wedding in a media enquiry from TVwithThinus following the barrage of viewer outrage and complaints over the shocking show.

Mzansi Magic late on Monday night suddenly said on its website that it would now "like to apologise for airing the segment that has upset our viewers", that the channel takes the concerns of viewers seriously and that the M-Net provided channel to MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV platform has "taken the decision not to broadcast the episode again".

A few hours earlier on Monday afternoon Mzansi Magic's publicity division issued a tepid, general statement, saying Mzansi Magic "note and acknowledge the concerns from our viewers regarding the Our Perfect Wedding episode" and that the programme's premise is to "celebrate love and the journey that couples take".

While Mzansi Magic initially sold and marketed Our Perfect Wedding to viewers as kasi escapism and light entertainment, the M-Net channel is trying to put a documentary spin on it, saying "our reality shows reflect society as it is. In the case of this episode, the couple's past brought up uncomfortable social issues which the family and community who were initially against the relationship, found a way to resolve".

Mzansi Magic says "we are committed to telling stories that impact our viewers and build our communities whilst challenging society". Mzansi Magic says the channel doesn't "condone any unlawful behaviour".

TV newsers Joy Summers from M-Net's Carte Blanche; Yusuf Omar and Philip Owira of eNCA win category prizes at Vodacom Journalist of the Year Awards.

Several TV newsers won prizes at the 2015 National Vodacom Journalist of the Year Awards with accolades for eNCA (DStv 403), M-Net (DStv 101) and Carte Blanche.

Joy Summers won her second award in one year for the same story. M-Net's Carte Blanche investigative magazine show won for the story "Bobbroff's Fall from Grace" as the winner in the category for Best TV feature.

The same Carte Blanche insert won earlier this month at the Legal Journalist of the Year Awards.

The Vodacom Journalist of the Year Awards judges said the insert was "a victory for consumer journalism told very effectively through the medium of television. It demonstrates a thorough investigation into the legalities and finances of the complex process of personal injury claims and how they get abused".

Philip Owira from eNCA won in the category for Best TV news insert for "Rhodes has Fallen. The judges called it "a brilliant piece".

The overall Editor's Choice Award was given to eNCA's Yusuf Omar.

Yusuf Omar will join the Thomson Foundation in the United Kingdom for The Summer Convergence Course in August 2016 and will get one week's work experience at a British media organisation.

Avalanche of animation for the holidays as M-Net Movies Family goes with animation movies; DStv adds Turner's Hoolee as continent's first kids pop-up channel.

An avalanche of animation fun is coming to DStv subscribers with pay-TV broadcaster M-Net turning its M-Net Movies Family channel on DStv into an animation family movie channel from 4 December while the Hoolee channel kids channel starts on 1 December.

M-Net is turning the M-Net Movies Family (DStv 105) channel into an Animania channel from Friday, 4 December in a special animation movie festival that will continue until Friday 15 January 2016.

M-Net Movies Family will show animation movies all day long from Friday, including box office hits like Frozen, The Incredibles, Finding Nemo, the Ice Age movies and Disney hits like Cars.

Although the M-Net Movies Family channel is only available to DStv Premium subscribers, some of the movies will be made available on MultiChoice's DStv Catch Up video-on-demand service which means that lower-tiered subscribers of the pay-TV service will also get access to it.

The Toy Story and Shrek films together with Despicable Me and James and the Giant Peach as well as many others will compete with Turner Broadcasting System's Hoolee channel starting on 1 December and running on DStv across Africa until the end of January 2016.

Hoolee (DStv 197) will be for DStv Premium, DStv Extra and DStv Compact subscribers and MultiChoice Africa and Turner Broadcasting call it "the continent's very first pop-up children's channel".

MultiChoice and Turner Africa didn't release any programming schedule or programming line-up to the press ahead of the channel's launch on Tuesday but Turner Africa said Hoolee's programming will be "truly amazing".

Hoolee will show animation movies and animation shows, ranging from shows like Sonic the Hedgehog, Zig & Sharko and The Adventures of Puss in Boots, to the third season of Dragons set before the events of the How to Train your Dragon movies.

Films include Beethoven's Christmas Adventure, Lego: The Adventures of Clutch Power, Babe: Pig in the City, The Borrowers and Balto II: Wolf Quest!

Hoolee content will include shows from Turner and Warner Brothers productions as well as exclusive acquisitions.

China's Sino-Africa Media Leadership Summit on Tuesday in Cape Town will be slight awkward as Naspers works with StarTimes competing with their own MultiChoice in pay-TV sector.

Tuesday in Cape Town with the first Sino-Africa Media Leadership Summit ever to be held on African soil will undoubtedly carry a level of awkwardness bubbling under the surface although everybody involved will probably just smile and wave; smile and wave.

Tomorrow Cape Town will host the inaugural Sino-Africa Media Leadership Summit, co-organised by South Africa's Naspers media conglomerate and China's StarTimes group.

The slight level of awkwardness that will permeate the gathering of hundreds of media types, dignitaries and media representative from across the African continent and from China originates from the subtext.

Naspers is onboard as co-organiser of the event given the media-conglom's massive interest and growing investment in China. The other co-organiser in StarTimes.

Naspers' own pay-TV ventures and brands are all in direct competition with China's StarTimes own fast-growing TV business in South Africa and across the African continent.

Naspers' M-Net, MultiChoice, GOtv and new subscription video-on-demand (SVoD) ShowMax in South Africa that is set to expand beyond the country's borders in 2016 are rivals to StarTimes across Africa and with StarTimes Media SA in South Africa running the StarSat satellite pay-TV service.

Thus while Naspers has its own pay-TV divisions in Africa, it is doing the Sino-Africa Media Leadership Summit in South Africa in conjunction with its biggest competitor on the African continent.

More than 200 professionals and delegates from South Africa, from across Africa and from the People's Republic of China - 43 countries in total - will attend Tuesday's summit at the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC) with journalists, editors, marketers and ad buyers from newspapers, TV, radio and new media organisations attending.

The conference with the theme of "A New Era of Win-Win Cooperation between China and Africa" will discuss growing media exchanges between Africa and China as China steadily ramps up development investment and media spend across the continent.

China has become Africa's largest trading partner and has offered loans totaling $32 billion to African nations the past two years. Chinese investments are received with open arms especially in places where Western countries have not ventured, while China looks to solidify and expand its commercial foothold across the continent.

China invited representatives from a vast number of countries to South Africa for the summit - including often-overlooked African nations like Ethiopia, Benin, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Mali, Niger, Togo, Liberia, Comorin, Chad, Tunisia, Cape Verde, Cote d'Ivoire and a dozen other African countries.

China and StarTimes want to strengthen media business relations with all of these countries.

StarTimes with more than 4 000 employees has already set up subsidiaries in 28 African countries and says in its Sino-Africa Media Leadership Summit memo that it "enjoys profound capital strength and financing ability" and sees Africa's digital terrestrial television (DTT) and pay-TV market "as an important part of its long-term development strategy".

After Tuesday's media summit, the focus shifts to Johannesburg on Wednesday and Thursday where China is set to make some further investment announcements.

Tuesday's Naspers and StarTimes media summit is a precursor to the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation taking place in Johannesburg on 3 and 4 December, with China's president Xi Jinping visiting South Africa after a two day visit to Zimbabwe.

M-Net facing class action case over alleged racial discrimination; pay-TV broadcaster says its Magic in Motion Film Academy is not breaking any laws.

M-Net is facing a class action complaint over alleged racial discrimination and excluding white students from its Magic in Motion Academy, while the pay-TV broadcaster says its rules are not breaking the law.

M-Net has become embroiled in a growing race row at the start of the second year of its Magic in Motion Academy (MiM Academy).

The MiM Academy started as a brand-new corporate social investment (CSI) initiative this year and has done terrific work in 2015 to expose South African film students, working as interns, to the South African television business by getting hands-on experience across a range of M-Net, kykNET and Mzansi Magic channels' productions.

The MiM Academy is overseen by the veteran producer and director Bobby Heaney as the academy's director.

M-Net is allegedly excluding white students from applying for one of the 20 internships for 2016 - up from 12 positions this year - saying that applications are "strictly EE (Employment Equity) qualifying candidates only – black, coloured and Indian". Applications close on 11 December.

Trade union Solidarity announced that it will now file a class complaint with the South African Human Rights Commission (HRC) about what it says is "M-Net's discriminating Magic in Motion internship" programme.

"M-Net indicated that only black, coloured and Indian persons would be considered for an internship opportunity. This opportunity excludes all white persons," says Dirk Groenewald, the head of Solidarity's Centre for fair labour practices.

"Our complaint to the HRC is based on the prohibition by law of quotas and absolute limitations as well as the reservation of jobs."

"The explanation M-Net offered to Solidarity is unacceptable and serves as confirmation that they are excluding all white persons, and therefore, they are acting in breach of the law."

"It is totally unacceptable that M-Net supports and implements such discriminating practices. We will request the HRC to give its urgent attention to the matter and will also argue that M-Net should do away with those practices," says Dirk Groenewald. "We also have a social obligation to stand up against those racist practices".

In a statement M-Net CEO Yolisa Phahle says M-Net is not breaking the law and that M-Net "rejects Solidary's claim that out internship programme does not comply with the Employment Equity Act".

Yolisa Phahle says M-Net's Magic in Motion Academy initiative is in line with the Employment Equity Act "which requires us to remove barriers to employment - which is exactly what Magic in Motion does".

"Magic in Motion is one of several interventions we are making to transform the sector, including significant investments in local content and the development of local film production companies."

"We will continue to play a role in building an electronic media sector which is truly representative of all South Africans," says Yolisa Phahle.