Watching e.tv in the early years was like looking at some impoverished child in a squatter camp trying desperately to get to move to a more affluent suburb but having no help whatsoever from anyone. The broadcast regulator of the day seemed to go out of its way to make sure that e.tv would have to compete on a playing field that was far from level and subjected it to licence conditions that were pages and pages longer than those of its competitors.
That e.tv has ended up 10 years later as a successful, vibrant and most of all, profitable television channel, is testament to some extremely hard work, ingenuity and a point blank refusal to give up. And most of all not to be intimidated by the bigger, more established players.
Think about it. There was e.tv - a single channel with only so many hours in the day competing with the SABC's three channels and most of all trying to do so while SABC collected all the TV licence revenue and e.tv getting not a cent of it. On the other side it had to compete against the might of M-Net and DStv which had the benefit of revenue from subscribers. e.tv wasn't allowed to charge subscription fees but had to stick to being free to air.
In the early days, when it came to competing with SABC and M-Net for a share of the advertising cake the majority of media buyers couldn't see the point. It was far too small fry in terms of viewership numbers.
Those first few years were tough. But e.tv didn't give an inch and slowly but surely its programming started to make an impact on viewers who were becoming more and more disenchanted with the SABC.
It was about seven years ago that I noticed something that suggested to me that e.tv was not only going to survive but was actually going to make a profit. Without having to rely on miracles.
I was invited to a meeting of e.tv advertising sales reps. There were about 20 of them and my first reaction was to mutter “shame” under my breath. What did this tiny little bunch hope to achieve against the might of SABC's 380 sales reps?
But, it didn't take long to see what was going to make the difference. While the SABC's 380 reps were out flogging advertising space, this little group was making deals. Listening to clients, figuring out what clients wanted and structuring promotional packages for them.
To me that was a turning point in e.tv's fortunes. That and the fact that they clearly didn't care what their competitors were doing and how they were doing it but just forging ahead the e.tv way. And succeeding.
There is no question though, that e.tv's success in the free to air stakes has been helped enormously by ongoing problems and hassles at SABC. Frequent and usually traumatic changes at senior management level and in airtime sales at the national broadcaster along with boardroom battles, internal strife and radical drop in credibility of news content.
When e.tv switched its main news bulletin to 7pm, SABC followed, almost meekly. All this did was prove that the SABC was very, very worried about what inroads e.tv was making into its viewership. And lately an extremely bold and clearly expensive move in terms of jacking up the way e.tv presents weather reports, has left SABC languishing in the dark ages. I can't remember how many times in the past 10 years I have commented on the pathetic nature of TV weather forecasting. E.tv has answered my prayers and come up with something that is professional and credible.
And as SABC news has lost credibility over the years, particularly recently, e.tv news bulletins have gained credibility by the bucket load. Sure, sometimes e.tv is a bit cavalier with the way it sensationalises news items from time to time but all that really suggests to me is that the news department is filled with very, very enthusiastic people who just love what they are doing.
While I don't watch any other new bulletins other than e.tv and applaud them for launching their very professional 24-hour news channel, there are things that I and I guess a lot of other people don't like about it. Such as ads interrupting movies and gratuitous porn. But I respect e.tv for having to do those sorts of things to make a profit because ad and sponsorship revenues are their only options.
However, this is not a time to be churlish and bang on about what I think e.tv does wrong, but rather to stand up and give them all more than a big round of applause because what they have achieved in 10 years is nothing short of absolutely remarkable.
Astonishingly so.
