We are standing on the edge of the plateau on which we have happily lived and worked all our lives.  The plateau is called “Analogue Day Part TV Broadcasting, with some pay TV for the affluent who can afford it.”

We are being pushed over that cliff into the new world of Digital Terrestrial TV and low cost pay TV. We don’t have a choice.  We are literally there.  If you don’t have a map of this new land, and cute little parachute of skills to let you down, they pick you up at the bottom of the cliff in a spoon.

Getting a handle on the techniques of multichannel scheduling, and filling many channels with local content for niche audiences presents no difficulty at all for you if your eyes are open and you see that it’s already happening.  It’s there, and it’s proven.

M-net was a tentative move into pay-TV but it was a day-parted single channel. (Day-parted: morning show, then kiddies; lunchtime show; then youth; followed by prime time and after 9:00 pm – watershed.)

DStv came on the scene on 1995 (I believe the second satellite pay bouquet in the world, following the first by a matter of weeks).

Four years later, the pioneer came on the scene: KykNET the first fully Afrikaans channel.  By definition, it had to be 100% local content.  Since local content costs ten times foreign licensed content, it looked financially dicey.  But no pay TV operator will introduce a costly new channel unless it primarily brings in new subscribers.

In those days, the subscription cost was very high and limited to the upper LSM’s only.  On top of it, it was safe to assume that those Afrikaans speaking people who wanted the channel, and could afford it, were already subscribers.

But it worked, and was a hit from the start.  The channel had bought up all the best Afrikaans films of the previous 60 years, and presented a mix of talk, lifestyle and movies – with kiddies (Tjommies) suitably day-parted.

Why this is important is that all broadcasters will firstly be presented with lower cost Top TV, and the others (SABC, E.tv and M-Net) are being issued with digital terrestrial licenses.

What’s freaking them out is how do they fill each channel with 24 hours of programming, and select the dedicated niche audience that makes the channel payable?

The answer lies right in front of their noses with the Afrikaans channels on DStv that are produced by M-Net: KykNET, Koowee and MK. KykNET started off cheap – it gave its producers long term contracts and low cost per hour, which is possible with a year or two contract. That covered all, the talk, lifestyle, music and sport programmes.

KykNET actually did deliver.  If you were Afrikaans speaking, you had two choices: a few hours a day on SABC2, or everyday on KykNET.  The amazing thing about entertainment is that if people really want it, they’ll find the money.  This is what out of work American did during the Great Depression.  They were broke, but they found the money to pay for and finance the Golden Years of MGM lavish musicals.

Five years later KykNET is the channel of choice for all Afrikaans speakers, White and Coloured.  The SABC has tried hard to poach the market, but it cannot offer the lure of 24 hours entertainment in your own language.

KykNET now produces soaps, dramas, reality and action, and all on decent budgets.  It has spun off two other channels, one for kids, and another as a VH1-type.

Villa Rosa in a typical week pulls in 220 000 viewers. Some programmes pull in 15% Coloureds.

M-Net’s experiences here offer a few solid rules:

If people want a channel in their language, or reflecting their own culture or interests badly enough, they will find the money to pay for it.

You define your target, so that no matter how small, you can deliver exactly what they want. You start off small but irresistible.  You also acknowledge that viewers are very forgiving of low cost production as long as it goes to their hearts (look at how forgiving the Africa Magic viewers are!).

You make programmes Fit for Purpose – you give the audience just enough quality and quality to keep them grateful.

You do cross media deals with all the other specific media.

So, who’s going to look at the Zulu Channel; the ZCC Channel; and the opera and ballet channel?

(First appeared in The Media April 2010)

A few weeks ago there was one of those super-expensive “conferences” – this time called “Branded Entertainment”.  This insult to audiences goes under all sorts of names: product placement, product integration, Advertiser Funded Programming (AFP), advertainment …

The proponents claim it goes back to the 1950’s with sponsored television programmes in the USA.  Sure it does, but those programmes were all top and tail “Proudly brought to you by …” Now it’s the full Monty: top and tail, interstitials, product placement and even products playing character parts. However, proponents claim the main aim is to combat the facility to skip ads on a PVR.

Even Americans have baulked at the extremes to which South Africa goes today.  “Bar One Manhunt”; “Tropika Island of Treasure”, “Axe Sweet Life” and that half- hour long, worthy of squirm on SABC3 called “Valpré Top Travel.”  The latter goes to the vicious extreme of having a bottle of tap water keyed bottom right just like a station ident[1]. (Axe Sweet life” was very acceptable; Valpré is at the other end of the scale.)

So, the R4 000 for the day conference would appear to be relevant.  It’s interesting that not one broadcaster was listed as a speaker.  It makes you think that AFP is in the mind of the advertisers, who are simply being guided by a recession where ‘business unusual’ is prominent.

There are all sorts of surveys, from what advertisers think, to the ratings of programmes.  But not one research agency has gone out to the public to ask them what they FEEL about it.  Product awareness is not the same as joyfully accepting the product push.

But my gut feel tells me that the audiences grudgingly accept it in the same way as they accept ad breaks.

Just because AFP floods the airwaves from e.tv and SABC, it does not mean they are acceptable.  M-Net, that researches audiences far more than any other broadcaster, seems to steer away from AFP.

But for the broadcaster it is tempting.  It is common throughout Africa, where TV sets often penetrate only 30% of the population, and the TV programme budget is little more than a radio budget in South Africa.  But what happens in Africa does not apply to South Africa.

This is NOT because SA has “taste”.  It’s just a phenomenon that has grown up over the years.  From the very beginning of TV, local programmes sat side by side with large budget foreign blockbusters.  Broadcasters and producers were literally forced to up the budgets and match the production values of local programming, in order to satisfy audiences.

To prove this, look at kykNET on satellite TV, which is multichannel and attracts appreciative niche viewers, does not command such comparisons.  The people who watch kykNET appreciate it so much that they don’t compare the quality with foreign programming on other channels.  That’s why kykNET commissions low budget programming, and gets away with it.

But free to air is not niche.  It’s free and the remote zips up and down where programme quality is viewed side by side.

You also can’t compare South Africa to European countries. In Italy, where it’s common,  just about all TV is owned by a 75 year old president who I wouldn’t allow my daughter to go out with (mind you, there’s quite a few of those around). When you have a near monopoly you can do what you like.  In UK and USA it’s still small.

Currently South African broadcasters (especially the crippled SABC) have no choice but to use AFP as a cheap alternative. Advertising revenue is down, and they are freaking in the face of new and unknown competition from On Digital.  But the SABC will recover its positive cash flow – and its dignity.

So I wonder if the acceptance of AFP by viewers is not an illusion and a delusion?  I think that the alternative will prevail: – Fit for Purpose Programming.  Under this philosophy, the programme budget equates with the total value of the programme.  If the audience is small (but niche and dedicated) then don’t spend what you would on a programme that just might sell abroad. 

It doesn’t matter whether the camera dwells on a can of Castle just a moment too long, or whether it is Valpré “in your face”, audiences are not fools.  Broadcasters know that.  Maybe advertisers should check it out as well.

(First appeared in The Media March 2010)

In the beginning was the word, and the word became the visual.  And lo, the visual begat the movie, and the movie begat TV. Verily, the TV begat the computer and the computer begat the cellphone, and the cellphone became god and the cellphone was god.

Here endeth the first lesson.

It’s all about income.  No one really knows how much the broadcasters have suffered in loss of advertising revenue. The ads are there, but at what discount price?  But, there’s a good outcome to the worst circumstances.  This is just a practice run for multi-channel, where there will be even more channels fighting over the same limited adspend.

There are three ways out of this (and some of the broadcasters are already toying with them).  Firstly, change your selling techniques. Sell ads not only on AR’s, but also on content, and the special niche that the content attracts.  Here you sell ads on the indices of appreciation, loyalty and attention. They’re trying it out in the USA. At least that’s what they say of the blogs.  But it does need a new mindset in sales techniques. Reps have to make personal calls, with highly targeted material that details the benefits of the content to the audience.  It’s costly, but the audience is worth more per thousand.

The second is the sponsorship route, but the seller has to come up with a neat way to evaluate the sponsorship, so the client can see what he gets for his money.  This means the broadcaster has to do more work in programme evaluation.

The third, as scripture says, is the cellphone (glory be upon it.)

But the continuing mystery is where the money comes from. AMPS say that 49% of LSM 1-4 have cellphones.  People who work in the rural schools tell me that half the kids in high school have cellphones.  But will someone please explain to me why these poverty stricken kids are always getting calls?  After all, to receive a call, someone has to make a call.  So how do their friends afford the airtime to make calls when they are equally penurious? 

But I’m also told that these kids surf Facebook, Mxit (and any other social sites they can get hold of) on their phones.  This signals “social networking”, and there’s money to be made from any club.

But cellphone revenue is not new.  The first “Who wants to be a millionaire ten years ago netted R75 grand a week just on calls from people wanting to be on the show.  Even then, they had the trick of the call centre, “If you speak Zulu, press 1, if you speak Inuit, press 2 …”.  Keeping people on the line for two or more minutes, just for them to leave their own number, brought in the biblical shekels.

That’s ten years ago.  Since then phone penetration has shot up.  We know that the future lies somewhere in interactivity.  Social networking seems to be the main prospect, with competitions, SMS comments and phone in coming next.

People seem perfectly happy to pay anywhere from R2 to R10 to enter competitions, and donate to charities (for which the broadcaster gets a handsome handling fee)

We also know that cellphone related content works, such as Vodacom ThumbWars, which cleverly combined sponsorship with related content.  But we need more than this.

But after this?  Are they prepared to pay for downloaded subscription news services?  The indications so far are – no. They love sending in SMS comments that are displayed on the screen, but that satisfies you only briefly.  Graffiti lasts a hell of a lot longer when to comes to leaving your mark in public.

In the name of the channel, the cellphone and the profits. Amen

Here endeth the second lesson.

(First appeared in The Media November 2009)

Michael Hirschorn is my most admired TV commentator.  Pity he only writes about American TV.  In the latest The Atlantic, he says, “The future is cheese.”  He makes the following points:

• Heroes, a serial, “took a public swan dive into hard concrete”.  Why? For exactly      the same reason it elicited comments from the PC users in South  Africa.  They had already seen season 2 either on DVD or streamed on the Web.  With PVR and online streaming, you don’t need to wait for next week’s episode, or the next season.  So serials on public TV, two years or  more after the USA release are a waste of money.  The producer, in a fit of pique said,  “So on-air is [relegated] to the saps and dipshits who can’t figure out  how to watch it in a superior way.”
• Jay Leno’s talk show has been moved from 11:30 pm to 10:00 pm,  unheard of on the USA.  Why?  Networks don’t make as much money on TV as they used to.  Advertising is right down, and there are alternatives to TV (there always have been).  Hirschorn says DVD, games, TV on the Web is creating a type of “cultural attention deficit disorder”.
• So explosions in Fiji, 3D Pleistocene monsters are out and cheap TV is in. So the only thing can TV can offer is immediacy.

And reality TV is cheap, if you know how to do it.  Pre-script it carefully, so as to cut down in editing time; don’t pay the actors (they may even pay you just to be on TV); use domestic digital cameras without the cost of a tripod; and shoot close to home.  Some public humiliation of the losers will just boost the viewership.

Hirschorn also points out the Saturday Night Live clones will appear in prime time soon –signs that the digital revolution has been a great leveller, “Blogs work better than newspapers. Small bands with passionate audiences do better (than) their predecessors. Cult movies find and sustain audiences. Niche rules over mainstream.”  In other words, those who don’t subscribe to pay TV, get what they pay for “not a cultural wasteland, exactly, but the TV equivalent of morning talk radio.”

Love him, but he’s writing about the scene in the USA culturally and literally miles from South Africa.  But the cracks are showing here as well.  A R780-m debt is not going to go away with cosmetic staff cuts.  It means radical surgery to local content, which costs about a billion a year.  Judging by the programme cancellations so far, costly home-baked drama (with no hope of selling abroad) is out.

Reality is in, but we are going to learn how to do it cheaply like everyone else.  Talk, live bands, gospel and dance are in. Game shows are also cheap (a homely form of reality TV’s public humiliation.  Much more soccer; and maybe even home-grown wrestling.  And affordable lifestyle – makeovers, DIY and home entertaining.

This could be prime time fare by the next quarter.

I suspect also a lot more foreign programming.  SABC will pare its local content down to the bare minimum quota.  Hopefully it will consign its maniac SABC News International to the dustbin.

And repeats and reruns – the SABC may learn the value of pay-TV’s euphemisms of Encore, Reprise and Return.

E.tv and M-Net will probably indicate the way ahead.  They haven’t blown their savings as the SABC has, but they are conscious of margins, and threatened income will invoke a knee jerk response to cut the costs of local content.

As for the local independent producers who are calling foul, they too could benefit from a little reading and find ways to cut costs and retain their margins. 

You may be able to carry on copy-catting the content, but as regards production techniques and technologies, innovation is IN.

(First appeared in The Media May 2009)

Why do we always use the word “challenges” instead of “problems”?  A challenge is something you have to deal with, in no real state of urgency.  A problem is a great big brick wall that has to be climbed or demolished NOW.  Whenever I hear, “This is one of the industry’s challenges”, then I know they have no intention of dealing with it.

This is not something you can do in TV.  In TV you have to deliver.  The content is scheduled, the audience is waiting, it has to be ready for transmission, and it has to be good.  There are no challenges here – only problems.

It’s not that difficult to predict the mood of the audience in the next six months, but it is a problem when it comes to predicting mood a year ahead.  Most programmes take a year to get on the air.

We have a looming economic depression ahead of us. We all know what happened to TV programming in previous depressions, and it’s fairly easy to predict that there will be a demand for more sentimental feelings, outlandish game and reality shows and, of course, fantasy.  After all, the most successful reruns in the USA post 9/11 trauma, were “Touched by an Angel” and “Dr Quinn: Medicine Woman.”

Why? Because they are both about miracles, and in the 2002, the Americans were so traumatised the only thing that seemed viable was a miracle.  They are about to go the same way again.

So how do we analyse the audience mood in a year’s time, and satisfy their emotional needs?

People are driven simultaneously by hope that nice things will happen and fear that bad things will come about.  As a result, they watch TV to try and make sense of the world, and to glean from stories some strategies they can file away that may help them deal with fearful change in the future.

Pretty elementary media psychology stuff.

Given that the economy will be rock bottom towards the end of 2009, people won’t have access to the demand for instant gratification. If they want luxury goods, they have to save up for them.  Everyone will know someone who is unemployed.  The SUV has been exchanged for a Tazz.  School fees will be in arrears.  Credit card repayments are first call on the budget.

Then, people will argue, “The economy is shot.  It’s not my fault.  In fact I don’t even think its South Africa’s fault”.  They will be looking for someone to blame.  Stories they identify with, will be those that confirm their suspicions, such as good conspiracy stuff, and stories where the rich, evil guys get what’s coming to them.

Hypochondria will flourish. Talk shows like Noeleen will be in increasing demand, as long as she concentrates on the devastating effects on the body and psyche of not having enough money.  The broadcasters will love these shows too: they’re cheap to make.

As for strategies that help you deal with change, the only change you can hope for is either some utopia you have always dreamed of, or the return of the good old days.

This means two types of programmes: fantasy (including game shows), preposterous reality stuff, and sentimental treatments that take us into an emotionally ideal existence.  This lays the field wide open to our own “Touched by an Angel” or “Dr Quinn: Medicine woman”.  Could they be, Gesoen deur Engela, and Gugu: Sangoma?

Nostalgia will thrive – it doesn’t matter which “good old days” as long as they were the prosperous ones.  There will be a decline in home décor, unless it’s real budget stuff.

So how does this in with what is forecast round the world? A brief check of Europe, UK, US and Australia shows a plethora of top models, relationships game shows, but remember, these are only the preview releases for the 2009 first quarter.  I can’t find anyone forecasting what is coming up after that, but with adspend down 10%, you can bet it will be cheap, low risk, and pandering to excessive hopes and fears.

(First appeared in The Media Feb 2009)