The Mercury, IOL quotes MarkLives, forgets to credit us

The Mercury and IOL finally caught up with the bloggers and the tweeps. It has run a story on its front page about the letter those ridiculous lawyers of FIFA sent budget airline Kulula.com.

Colleen Dardagan writes that “the airline broke the news on Twitter yesterday, saying: ‘Oh dear, letter from Fifa’s lawyers says we broke their trademark of the use of ‘South Africa’ and think our non-WC ad was about soccer … even the use of our national flag was an issue. It is absolutely outrageous. We have signed over our country, its symbols and our economy to one Sepp Blatter. Nasty.”

Well Kulula didn’t break the news on Twitter yesterday. It broke the news on Twitter on March 12th.

It only tweeted “oh dear letter from FIFA’s lawyers says we broke their trademark of the use of ‘South Africa’ and think our non-WC ad was about soccer…” as per the original MarkLives.com story. The rest was lifted straight from our editorial without credit.

PS: Howdy Business Report. Shout out to Newstoday.co.za. Hi News24 guys. Good folks at The Star

Update 10:40 am: IOL updates their story. Thanks @juanitaw

Update 15:36: “I said it, Mr Blatter, not Kulula.“

TopTV launches in SA

On Digital Media (ODM) has finally announced details of its multi-channel television brand  TopTV. It offers the first real alternative to the DSTv monopoly. The service will see a staggered roll-out from May 2010 with pricing options ranging from R99 to R249 per month. It will be targeted at customers in LSM5-8.

The offering will include:

Religious Christian Channels

  • Top Gospel

Top Gospel is a Christian lifestyle channel with talk shows, Christian music videos as well as faith based movies.

  • God TV

GOD TV is a global media ministry founded by South African couple, Rory & Wendy Alec.

  • Christian Channel

ODM is still finalizing negotiations on a Christian Channel, which shall be named in due course.

  • Inspiration

Inspiration TV has become the fastest growing international Christian network in the world.

Movie Channels (excludes ‘Premium Channels’)

  • Zee Cinema

Zee Cinema brings Bollywood movies to our TV screens.

  • Hi Nolly

Hi Nolly features some of the best movies and entertainment from the Nigerian market.

  • MGM

MGM is a 24 hour movie channel offering the best from Hollywood’s famous Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer library.


News Channels

  • BBC World (also available on DStv)

Breaking news from the BBC.

  • Fox News

Fox News – a right wing take on news from the United States.

  • MSNBC

MSNBC – the liberal alternative to FOX News

  • Al Jazeera (also available on DStv)

Al Jazeera English is the world’s first English language news and current affairs channel with headquarters in the Middle East.

  • France24

France 24 covers international current events with a French perspective.

  • Current TV

Current TV features happenings and current affairs, particularly from a youth perspective.

Sport Channels (excludes ‘Premium Channels’)

  • Setanta Africa

Setanta Africa is a 24-hour sports channel which focuses on the ‘beautiful game’. The sports channel covers Arsenal, Aston Villa, Manchester City and Tottenham in its weekly line up, as well as SPL, Russian and Dutch leagues.

  • Eurosport News

With news bulletins updated every 30 minutes, Eurosport News gives you the very latest from the world of sports and business.

  • Fuel

FUEL TV is a 24/7 extreme sports channel featuring base-jumping, skateboarding, snowboarding, surfing, BMX and other death-defying sports.

Entertainment Channels (excludes ‘Premium Channels’)

  • Top One

Top One is a 24-hour general entertainment channel, bringing drama series, children’s shows, movies and  South African classics.

  • Fox Entertainment

Fox Entertainment is dedicated to the best television series, including The Simpsons, Family Guy, 24, Grey’s Anatomy, Criminal Minds and Boston Legal.

  • Fox Retro

Fox Retro is an entertainment channel dedicated to the most popular series that defined the 70s, 80s and 90s, which helped shape the pop culture and trends of today.

  • SABC 1

Sigh

  • SABC 2

Sigh

  • SABC 3

Sigh

  • E-TV

Sigh

  • Educational Channel

ODM is finalizing discussions for the supply of an educational channel customized for the South African market. An announcement will be made when talks are concluded.

  • BET

Black Entertainment Television’ features the very best from African-American entertainers with series, talk-shows, sitcoms and interviews.

  • RTPi

RTPi is a general entertainment channel targeting Portuguese speaking communities worldwide.

Lifestyle Channels

  • Star

Star! Is an entertainment channel covering the glitz and glamour of Tinsel Town. Keep up to date with the latest in movies, celebrities, fashion, awards and Hollywood news on Star!

  • Fashion TV

Fashion TV (FTV) provides glamorous entertainment with emphasis on the latest trends, up and coming models, events, news and glamour.

  • Fine Living Network

FLN is TV’s fun lifestyle network with a fresh lineup of new relationship, wedding, cocktail and competition shows
Kids and Music Channels

  • Top Junior

Top Junior provides high quality and creative entertainment for children and the entire family in a highly imaginative, safe and accessible way. Popular shows to look forward to include Maya the Bee, Bumba, Tabaluga and Heidi.

  • Jim Jam

JimJam is a TV channel dedicated to pre-school children aged between 1 – 6 years and their parents.

  • Baby TV

Baby TV is the world’s first round-the-clock commercial-free channel for growing infants and toddlers, and their parents.

  • Kidsco

Signature shows include The Wiggles, Sonic the Hedgehog, Inspector Gadget, Sabrina, Dennis the Menace, New Adventures of Madeline and many more.

  • Afro Music

Afro Music is a 24 hour music channel featuring an eclectic mix of artists from across Africa.

  • Nigezie

Nigezie Is a brand new music and lifestyle channel with the main focus being on Nigerian artists, music videos, fashion and entertainment.

  • Kiss

Kiss is a 24 hour music channel with a focus on urban and hip-hop music.

  • Kerrang

Kerrang! TV is a 24 hour music channel consisting of hard rock music videos. The channel features themed countdowns like ‘Moshing Anthems’, ‘A-Z of Punk’, ‘Today’s 10 Most Rockin’’ and ‘Metal: 87-07’.

  • Qtv

Qtv is a 24 hour music channel featuring indie bands and music.

  • Magic

Magic TV features easy listening music videos from the 80s and 90s, with a large portion of daytime viewing dedicated to ‘Today’s Magic Hits’.

  • Smash Hits

Smash Hits is a music channel dedicated to popular hits from artists like Madonna, Beyonce and Justin Timberlake.

  • C Music

C Music provides viewers with the world’s finest classical, crossover, cinematic and chill-out music videos 24 hours a day.

  • Classica

Classica is a premium television channel devoted to classical music, opera, ballet and jazz as well as documentaries and interviews.

  • Music Choice (audio service)

Music Choice is a 24 hour channel audio service featuring music of different genres. From hip-hop and R&B, to classic rock and soul, there’s music for every mood, occasion and age

Documentaries

  • Natura

Natura is a 24 hour high quality documentary channel featuring documentaries from the world’s best directors and producers.

  • Top History

Top History is a 24 hour channel that offers the most memorable moments in history, with programming which includes South Africa and Africa.

  • Discovery ID

Investigation Discovery (ID) is the brand new channel from Discovery featuring the stories behind crime forensics and criminal investigations.

  • Discovery Travel & Living

Discovery Travel & Living explores the most fascinating and inspiring places on earth. The channel takes viewers to exotic and far-flung destinations.

  • Discovery Science

Discovery Science is a documentary channel focusing on programmes dealing with scientific and technological issues

  • Top Crime

Top Crime is a 24 hour entertainment channel with a focus on crime drama and suspense programmes.

  • Top Explore

Top Explore is a 24 hour channel which allows viewers the opportunity to explore the secrets and wonders of the world. Featuring strong stories, interesting people and high quality visuals.

Premium Channels

  • Silver

Silver is a 24 hour movie channel with movies sourced from independent suppliers in the US, Europe and other parts of the world.

  • Showtime

Showtime is as 24 hour action channel with blockbuster titles covering action, horror and sci-fi.

  • Fox FX

Fox FX is quality television for men. With a mix of quality, character-driven and often unconventional drama and comedy, it has a strong resonance with male audiences.

  • Top Movies

Top Movies is one of Top TV’s flagship channels. A 24 hour premium movie channel with recently released blockbuster titles and other award-winning movies.

  • Top Movies 2

Top Movies 2 is Top Movies time shifted by 2 hours. If you miss your favourite movie catch it 2 hours later on Top Movies 2.

  • Top Movies 24

Top Movies 24 is time shifted by 24 hours. The channel gives the viewer the opportunity to catch up on Top Movies from the previous day.

  • Top Sport

Top Sport is a premium sports channel featuring sports preferred by SA audiences. It will bring South Africans the best of local and international sport as well as the latest sporting news

News24 misrepresents ‘Malema Facebook page’

A story published today (March 17, 2010) in Afrikaans newspaper Beeld and republished on News24 (in English) purposely misrepresents the supposed Facebook page of Julius Malema.

The story is headlined ‘Malema fan counts dead ‘boere” and reporter Daniëlla du Plooy writes that “One of Julius Malema’s supporters is placing ‘updates’ of farm murders on the ANC Youth League leader’s Facebook page.” The reporter then extensively quotes a ‘Malema fans’ posts onto the site seemingly supporting farm murders.

Eight paragraps down you get this little disclaimer “Malema is not necessarily the creator or even involved with the page.” You don’t say Daniëlla.

Even a quick glance at the site in questions clearly shows this is not a Facebook page run by Julius Malema, the ANCYL or even a Malema supporter. The picture page is filled with images ridiculing Malema and the wall posts shows all kinds of racist invective from all sides of the numerous devides.

One ‘Malema fan’ writes “You run around like monkey’s singing death songs about killing whites and so forth. I’m a young white with a young boy, i will make sure to teach him what kind of race you truly are. I will be as racist and do anything in my power to fight u fuckers back. You can take the K@ffir out of the bush, but u cant take the bush out of the K@ffir.”

Another writes “lets face the facts. Julius malema is a idiot that knows nothing about politics. he just there to spend the tax payers money like the coverment. let me be very clear.. he is a big mouth that like 2 talk shit with back up men standing behind him. he don.t have the balls to come tell a white guy in his face what he think…”

Like Daniëlla not everybody seems to realise that Julius isn’t reading their comments on ‘his’ page. “How do you Malema feel about the fact that white people are no more settlers than all black people in South Africa? This means that all black and white people are settlers in South Africa,” writes another ‘Malema fan.’

Does anybody at Media24 still check copy? Did and News24 editors take a look at the purported ‘Malema fan site?’ The answer seems to be no.

The good news is you can still become a ‘Media24 fan‘ on Facebook.

Loeries 2010: Call for entries campaign launched

Loeries 2010: The biggest event of the year. The campaign theme for this years’ annual Loeries event, announced today, Monday, 15 March 2010, by CEO Andrew Human, is of course a tongue-in-cheek, if rather dry, reference to that ‘other’ biggest event of the year. Before those FIFA lawyers get their knickers in a knot again – Kulula-style – no part of the campaign actually ever mentions the FIFA World Cup or shows a football. It’s called having a sense of humour. Read my story and see all the creative on BizCommunity.

FIFA bullies target Kulula

According to Kulula it has been targeted by FIFA for its ad on being the ‘Unofficial National Carrier of the ‘You Know What.” The low cost airline recently challenged other carriers to keep their fares low during the FIFA World Cup in June and July this year.

News broke on its official Twitter account (@kulula) with the following post;  “oh dear letter from FIFA’s lawyers says we broke their trademark of the use of “South Africa” and think our non-WC ad was about soccer…”

Apparently the lawyers are objecting not only to the use of “South Africa” but also to the use of soccer balls and the image of a stadium. Even use of the our national flag was an issue.

It is absolutely outrageous. We have signed over our country, its symbols and our economy to one  ‘Sepp’  Blatter. Nasty.

The ‘mega R25,000,000 MILLION’ auction from Aucor

aucor auction pageI have never met Rick Raubenheimer but I can yell you the guys has a sense of humour. He recently lodged a complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority of SA (ASA) against a print advertisement for auction house Aucor.

The ad in question reads:
“MEGA FURNITURE
AUCTION-NO RESERVE!
Thursday, 28 January @ 10h30 / 562 15 th Road, Midrand
R25,000,000 MILLION INVENTORY TO CLEAR!”

“In essence, the complainant submitted that the claim to clear 25,000,000 million is impossible as that is approximately 10 times the GDP of South Africa,” writes the ASA.

Aucor submitted that the ad was an error and that it would not be used again. The ASA didn’t rule on the merit of the case since the advertiser in question undertook to withdraw the case. A text version can however still be found on the Aucor website.

DStv acknowledges promo similarities with iconic Apple ad

“Here’s to the crazy ones… who had the balls to copy one of the greatest commercials ever made.” The Bizcommunity.com peanut gallery was un-amused when Ornico recently picked a DStv promo titled ‘The Dreamers‘ as its ‘Ad of the Week’ on its ad showcase on Biz. The promo in question reminds one strongly of a rather iconic ad made by Apple for its successful ‘Think Different’ campaign in the late 1990s. Read the full story here.

Shame on SAPA for giving bigot national, uncritical exposure

One Taryn Hodgson of The Christian Action Network (CAN) has been gaining considerable exposure in the mainstream media thanks to SAPA. Hodgson launched an attack on DSTv for researching the possibility of offering a pornographic pay-TV channel to South Africans. SAPA decided to cast her as a vocal opponent of any such move and as an advocate for women’s rights.

“Should DStv introduce such a channel, they would be supporting those who exploit, objectify and degrade women,” she told SAPA. “Porn violates women’s constitutional rights to dignity and equality.”

There is sure to be lively debate around any move to launch such a service in South Africa. My interest really lies in the implied credibility bestowed by SAPA on Hodgson and her organisation.

This is the spokesperson for an organisation that tends to take points of view (as per its website) that would widely be considered as bigoted, racist and patronising. Some highlights;

1. The ANC government is ‘Marxist mass murderers [that] has led to the paganisation of this once strongly Christian nation.‘

2. Gay men and women (or homosexualists as per the CAN website) are attempting to ‘force all of society – beginning in primary schools – to conform to sexual deviancy.‘ Blatant hate speech takes up quite a lot of space on this website in fact.

3. It is implied that the movie Invictus is a paid for party-political advertisement filmed on behalf of Nelson Mandela and the ANC. ‘Under Clint Eastwood’s directorship, Invictus dogmatically asserts that Nelson Mandela and the black people needed to forgive the whites. Never does the film portray how much the whites had to forgive people like Nelson Mandela and his ANC terrorists who were responsible for the murder of thousands of South Africans. There is no mention in Invictus of the three decades of vicious terrorist warfare, including the burning down of thousands of schools, hacking to death of thousands of innocent people in homes and in the streets, pouring gasoline over a thousand innocent victims setting them alight, in the brutal necklace murders, the car bombs in public streets, limpet mines in shopping centres, petrol bombs and grenades through windows at night and assassinations.’

4. It’s implied that AIDS is deserved by those living with it. ‘Most humanist reporters who believe in a materialistic worldview refuse to consider the possibility that AIDS could be a judgment of God and a warning to promiscuous and adulterous individuals who violate God’s commands.’

Ignorance. Check.
Homophobia. Check.
Racism. Check.

Oh – and women’s rights – the cause SAPA makes us believe Hodgson is fighting for? ‘By making the murder of pre-born babies legal, easy and taxpayer funded, the Choice of Termination of Pregnancy Act defies all logic,’ reads the CAN website.

If the views of such an obviously bigoted individual and organisation are going to be given such eminence at least contextualise where it comes from. Implying Hodgson is an advocate for the constitution or for the rights of women seems both untrue and like poor journalism to me.

Arthur Goldstuck – Influence 2010

Mandy de Waal believes influence to be one of the most valuable commodities in Social Media, communities and business today. To find out who has influence, what influence is and how it will affect our lives and work, she speaks to some of the most influential people in media, marketing, branding and technology in a series of interviews that seek to reveal who the big guns are, and who’ll be grabbing attention this year. You can follow the series on MandyLives.com.

Arthur Goldstuck is South Africa’s foremost authority on the Internet. He was one of the first journalists to cover online in this country, one of the first to go online with his content, and one of the first to research and predict its influence on society and business. Something he still does it masterfully to this day.

Mandy de Waal: Who are you and what influence do you have?

Arthur Goldstuck: I’m head of World Wide Worx, a market research company that focuses on technology trends in business and society at large, with a strong focus on the Internet and mobile technologies. We’ve built up credibility over the past decade for the objectivity of the research on the one hand and on the other hand for our willingness to stick our necks out on the implications of the research.

Mandy: Who are the most influential people in technology, telecommunications and the digital sectors in South Africa today, and why have you chosen these people?

Arthur: No specific individuals, but four categories: The journalists covering the sectors on a regular basis; the founders and CEOs of companies that have a strong media presence; individuals within organisations who have championed the cause of areas like broadband, affordable telecommunications and the like; and politicians both in Government and outside who campaign for or set the agenda for technology access.

Mandy: How will technology influence local marketing in the next year and beyond?

Arthur: There are several areas of technological revolution that must change the way marketing happens. One is the bandwidth explosion that will arrive with the range of new undersea cables, combined with new fibre-optic networks criss-crossing our cities. A second is the move from “traditional”
cellphones to smartphones – a development that will eventually give half the population access to computing power and Internet applications.

Mandy: Which thought leaders have influenced your thinking in the past year and how?

Arthur: People who are active on the ground, working at understanding and enhancing technology access in disadvantaged communities or sectors, have been the ones who get my ear most easily. Examples are Steve Song at the Shuttleworth Foundation, Andrew October working in the townships of Cape Town and David Barnard, head of SANGONet, which is working at improving technology use among non-governmental organisations.

Mandy: What technologies will most influence the world in the coming year, and how will this play out?

Arthur: The battle for the smartphone market between Apple’s iPhone, Research in Motion’s Blackberry and Google’s Android phones will have a defining influence on the world of communications. The evolution of sustainable energy, mainly in the form of wind and solar power, will come into focus more strongly than ever before, and influence policy to an extent we have not seen before.

Mandy: Which local brands wield the most influence online, and why?

Arthur: Global brands like Google, Apple and Blackberry have a greater online influence in South Africa than most local brands. However, media brands like Mail & Guardian, Times Live and News24 are growing in their online influence as thought leadership platforms as well as information media.

Mandy: What do brands and marketers need to know about the influence of mobile?

Arthur: They need to know that it is not as big as they think in terms of an addressable market. It is not possible to reach the mass of cellphone users via the mobile Internet, as it is too diverse and dispersed. At the same time, it is much bigger than they think in terms of its influence on people’s lifestyles and information lives. The youth market, in particular, is embracing the mobile Internet across the board, in all socio-economic groups, and are way ahead of the marketers in the way they access and share information.

Follow Mandy de Waal on Twitter. Follow Arthur Goldstuck on Twitter.

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