GOOD LORD DESMOND TUTU IS BEING REMEMBERED ON TV DURING HIS FUNERAL AMONG SOME OF THE MOST GRUESOME TRUE CRIMES IMAGINABLE

 Dear Readers,

         Is what DStv has been doing acceptable or in very bad taste?

         In its enthusiasm to honour Tutu it has put an RIP message on the top right hand side of the picture on a few of its channels. But the BIG QUESTION IS: Was it acceptable to have the name of this revered Bishop associated with True Crime murderers of women and children, serial killers and just about every other kind of horror story imaginable?

         On its 171 Discovery ID channel we are being shown blood curdling stories with titles like American Monster and The Lake Erie Murders. If these are not enough to scare the hell out of you there is Death North about a couple suspected of cutting up a guy and cooking him for lunch. For a bit of light relief In Pursuit with John Walsh tells us about how a doctor specialised in sexually molesting his female patients.

         All these have this message for the Arch on them: RIP Desmond Tutu 1931-2021.

From "Evil Lives here"

         I flicked through the various other channels at random and very few had this Tutu message on them.  Every business thrives on attracting attention, but is this the best way of doing it at a time of the world mourning for our one and only Arch? I don’t think so.

         When Tutu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 I can’t believed that he would have been able to maintain his renowned sense of humour if DStv had chosen to keep repeating this in amongst the terror and debauchery that are on the channel where his RIP keeps popping up now.

         “You may have a point but we took a decision to pay tribute to him across our channels irrespective of what is being broadcast,” Calvo Mawela the CEO of MultiChoice, the owners of DStv told me. “I think he deserves to be remembered across the platform and it will be a reminder of good over evil.”

         Tragically no amount of prayers or anything else it seems are able to curb South Africa’s own TRUE CRIME which is spiraling out of control.

         Having done so much to oppose the White Apartheid Government Tutu must have been terribly disappointed with its replacement. It’s Black alright but so corrupt that every semblance of a modern society is collapsing around it to the detriment of most of us while the fats cats with their hands in the National till go unpunished.

Cyril hasn't always been blind
folded but he might as well
 have been

         In his ivory tower our President Cyril Ramaphosa keeps mum, just as he did when he sat beside the corrupt Jacob Zuma when he was the President who sold the country to the Gupta brothers. Cyril was his deputy from 2014 to 2018.

         Resting in Peace does have its advantages particularly in South Africa right now. Go well Arch.

         Regards Jon

         P.S. Here's what Tutu had to say when I asked him to comment on my 2011 post about him being called a "Black Nazi Pig" when he visited Israel to investigate its human rights abuses against the Palestinians. "It's hilarious, barbed and very clever. Thanks for your piece on the on-going saga of being anti-Semitic when one points out wrongs of not Jewish people, but of the Israeli Government. Ah well. Love and blessings to you and your Gayle. Arch"

    
  

 

 

EXPLORING THE MYSTERIES OF THE THINKING AT DStv WITH THE MAN AT THE TOP

Dear DStv Subscribers,

Mark

          As one myself I thought I would find out what Mark Rayner had to say about various aspects of what we have been watching that have been bugging me for some time. He is the CEO of MultiChoice the owners of DStv that has a total of some 18-million subscribers, not only in South Africa but in other parts of our continent.

          Here’s what I put to him on Monday 6 July followed by his answers. My additional comments are in italics.

Content & Repeats

Me: As there are so many repeats of shows why is it not possible to ensure that they do not appear at about the same time night after night? This sort of thing happens often. The Graham Norton show on 120 was an example in the last few days.

Mark: Regarding content, as Africa’s most loved storyteller we invest significantly into both local and international content – partnering with both local talent and the world’s best production studios to ensure our customers have an unrivalled selection to choose from.  DStv has one of the lower repeat rates globally, but the amount of TV watched per day in Africa – amongst the highest globally - means repeats are sometimes inevitable. We actively push our channel suppliers for fresher content and have started flagging which content is “new” to promote customer awareness. Channels also have strict performance criteria to ensure fresh hours and ratings remain at acceptable levels. He missed my point which was: It is surely possible, or should be, to schedule shows so that the same repeat does not appear night after night virtually at the same time. I don’t accept that repeats are “inevitable.” They are clearly there because they are cheaper than buying new shows. The “new” labels are very often not true anyway. If DStv was in the shoe business how long would it last if customers heard that the “new” shoes they had bought had already been worn for several days by somebody else?

Promotions

Me: The promos appear to be increasingly over done. The way they interrupt the shows that you are watching without warning sometimes makes you think you have flipped channels by mistake. Talk about Pointless. The one for this even interrupts the actual Pointless show while you are watching it. (I’m not talking about when the promo is connected to the bed that is being advertised). How inane is that? And this sort of thing is not uncommon with other promos. In general they are very often pointless because what they tell you makes nonsense of what you can actually see. As

an example the film MacDonald & Dodd appeared at around 6.00 pm last Saturday with a promo telling us it would be on at 8.00 pm on Monday. The film was repeated again last night (Sunday) at the about the same time while the promo continued to tell us to expect it tonight (Monday) at 8.00 pm. When it was screened on the Monday we were told in the top left hand corner it was NEW.

Mark: On the issue of promotions, it’s important we ensure our customers are aware of what is available to watch so that they get the most of their subscription. That said, a promotion that advertises something in the past is clearly not acceptable. Some promos are scheduled by us as DStv and some by the channel themselves, in this case the BBC. The scheduling of DStv promos has been a manual one which can be prone to human error from time to time. Since we are committed to providing customers with a quality viewing experience, we have introduced a new technology for DStv promo scheduling that will significantly reduce the occurrence of over exposure to a particular promotion by applying more accurate targeting of promos to the relevant viewing segments and limiting the number of runs of any particular promo to avoid overkill.  Regarding the BBC specific promos, we have shared your concerns – and you are not the first customer to raise this – with the BBC to address directly on the channels under their control. Please let us know if you experience any improvement over the coming weeks and months. To clarify with regards to the series, McDonald & Dodds, it premieres on Mondays with repeats on a Wednesday at 21:00, Saturday at 18:50 and Sunday at 20:30 – to give viewers other opportunities to see the show.

Timing of Shows

Me: When it comes to deciding when to put on shows there doesn’t seem to be any planning at all. How sensible is it to have a Christmas episode of QI in June? And to have a Paul O’Grady dog one at 10.00 at night?

Mark: According to our research, and viewership patterns, we find most viewers prefer watching QI in sequence and channels typically do not skip over these for that reason. Unless I can’t see for looking QI has stand alone episodes. They don’t follow one another in any kind of sequence and you don’t have to have watched one episode to enable you to follow the one that comes after that.

Competitions

Me: Regarding competitions like the Great British Bake Off surely it would be better to finish showing the various episodes before starting the repeats otherwise viewers don’t know where they are.

Mark: Third-party channels, for example BBC BRIT which broadcasts among others, the Great British Bake-Off, are responsible for their own broadcasts and content inventory. Although they often broadcast episodes of the same season before the full season ends, we have made them aware that it is confusing to some customers.  Confusing is an understatement. It’s a competition that has quite a number of episodes before the winner is chosen. So if the BBC repeats episodes along the way viewers can be left wondering whether they will ever see the final.

Cricket

Me: When it comes to the shortened form of any type of cricket, who came up with the idea of making them more boring than even the dullest part of a normal test match with every shot being repeated two or three times and even more often if somebody goes out. We are being taken for complete dumb dumbs. Surely people would be more interested in seeing more of the match than all these unrealistic repeats.

Mark: SuperSport remains of the leading sports broadcasters in the world. The team is continuously striving to improve its offering, and with the growth of short format viewing we understand how important this is to satisfy and keep sports fans stimulated. Our production team is constantly improving the quality of highlight packages. At the same time our technology division is exploring a growing global trend to utilise machine learning to improve these highlights.  As a cricket fan and former player myself, I do sometimes share your frustration that a short highlights reel doesn’t capture all the key moments in a game. For that reason we schedule longer highlights versions too for key games. We’ve shared your comments with the SuperSport cricket production team.

My First Question

Me: How about conducting a survey among DStv subscribers to see what they think about all the promos we have to contend with to get some entertainment and various other aspects of what we are given?

Mark: He steered well clear of this question. Would this be too risky in case what the majority of viewers actually think would involve too much of an overhaul of what is currently being screened?

                                               *    *    *    *

Mark finished his reply to me by saying: “We strive at all times to provide an uninterrupted video entertainment service with the best available content for our valued customers.” Do you subscribers agree that this is what you get?

Thanks Mark for your prompt and comprehensive answers.

Regards,

Jon, a Consumer Watchdog who hopes he got his fellow subscribers the answers to some of the concerns they might have had about what we pay for when we sign up for DStv.

 See:DStv's all new claims

HOW TRUE ARE ADVERTISEMENTS SHOWN ON DStv?

Dear TV Watchers,

Dana Lebowitz of ADCOCO

          Are you being deceived by some of the advertisers on South Africa’s DStv?

          I concede that it can’t be expected to investigate every advertisement that is submitted, but it would surely be in its own interests to get those making outlandish claims to substantiate them before their ads are accepted.

          Carrying ones that are suspect casts doubt on the validity of DStv’s ads in general.

          As I expected it does not “judge the authenticity of advertiser’s claims.” This is what Fahmeeda Cassim-Surtee CEO of DStv’s Media Sales told me.

          They leave it to viewers to root out their advertising bad eggs by complaining to the Adverting Regulatory Board.

          Here are a couple of the most glaring examples where the advertiser can’t even back up it own claims with solid proof, so you know what that means – you are being conned.

Alpecin German Engineering for your hair: The manufacturers of this shampoo have been denigrating German Engineering with their advertisement for this shampoo, because this is far from being a hair raising story.

          Its TV ads were banned in Britain but that hasn’t stopped it’s promoters from telling the same lie half a world away to Africans on DStv.

          Alpecin is a caffeine shampoo produced by Dr Kurt Wolff’s family business GmbH & Co in Germany and distributed in South Africa by its agent ACDOCO.

          On DStv viewers were told: "If hair growth is waning more and more men choose the caffeine based shampoo by Alpecin. During hair washing the highly dosed Alpecin penetrates the hair follicle."

          Dana Lebowitz is ACDOCO’s Marketing Manager in South Africa, and as such I thought she would immediately be able to give me the evidence to substantiate the claims being made for this shampoo. So I put three questions to her.

          I asked for independent scientific evidence that Alpecin reduced hair loss and that it penetrated the hair follicle. I also wanted to know if the veracity of the claims being made for this shampoo in advertisements had ever been questioned anywhere in the world.

          She replied promptly saying that she had sent my questions to the manufacturer in Germany for “further information.”

          Surely when her firm agreed to market this shampoo it would have cleared up the points I was raising before it became an Alpecin distributor. I concluded she was just stringing me along. 

          I then asked when she expected to hear from Germany. On  November 8 I sent a third email telling her that if I did not hear from her by 11 November I would assume that neither her firm nor the German manufacturers had any independent proof that this shampoo reduced hair loss or that it penetrated hair follicles.

          She replied the same day with her idea of proof which was a list of eight names of people she claimed had done “scientific studies.” She gave no further details.

          The Wall Street Journal reported that this shampoo was tested in studies published in 2010 and 2013 in the Journal of Applied Cosmetology. It quoted dermatologist Leonard Celleno, one of those named in Leibovitz’s list, as saying: “There was a little bit of hair regrowth seen in the studies, but it does not mean your hair will grow like you were 20 years old.” 

          He is a researcher at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Rome. Significantly the studies were funded by the manufacturer, the paper revealed.
          Britain's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) stated: "Taking into account the body of evidence, we considered that we had not seen any studies of the actual product as used by consumers on their scalp using an accurate analysis of hair growth, in a well-designed and well-conducted trial."
          It didn't think much of the fact that some results were measured by a "hair pull" test. 

           Alpecin's case was so flimsy that the ASA banned it's makers from saying it can “help to reduce hair loss” in any adverts.  It ruled last year that this “had not been substantiated and was therefore misleading.”
          So much for all the “scientific studies” Dana Liebowitz referred me to.

Aquafresh Toothpaste: This is made and marketed in South Africa by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), a giant British multinational, pharmaceutical company.

          Its goal, it claims, “Is to be one of the world’s most innovative, best performing and trusted healthcare companies.

          “Our values are Patient focus, Transparency, Respect, Integrity.

          “Everyone at GSK is focused on 3 priorities – Innovation, Performance, Trust” (Highlights are mine).

          This is what it tells us on its website. Now see how these all encompassing brags match up to my experience.

          Its Aquafresh ads that have appeared on DStv show a superman, cartoon like character in the red, white and blue stripes that are characteristic of this brand of toothpaste. He taps the side of a large tooth and tells us that he can “strengthen the enamel.”

          The ad appeared on Channel 135 on 17 October 2019 and on numerous other occasions.

          So I set out to see if GSK has any independent scientific evidence to back this unbelievable claim only to find that its public relations at its Johannesburg office was absolutely appalling. Over a period of perhaps three weeks I phoned almost every day in an effort to speak to the person in charge of the South African operation. 

          The woman on the switchboard assured me that Kimberley Hunt headed that office although Google gives the impression she is in America. Inappropriately in this case her title is Vice President, Commercial Excellence.

One of the Aquafresh ads

          I could only get Kimberley’s email address, I was told, by going through her PA Marie Visser. While trying to contact the elusive Marie I was repeatedly put through to her extension only to get an automatic reply. Leaving a message to return my calls got me nowhere and nor did I hear from her after I had given my contact details to the switchboard operator, who assured me that Marie would get back to me.

          Is this the PERFORMANCE the company is so proud of?

          Eventually I did get Marie on the phone. She told me I must contact their Marketing Manager Tanja Geyer at tanja.geyer@gsk.co.za.  

GSK's Tanja Geyer

          A fat lot of good that was.

          In an email I asked her what independent scientific evidence her firm had to show that their Aquafresh toothpaste “strengthens the enamel” of teeth, as claimed in the advertisements that GSK had been running on DStv.

          My email was dated 1 November and on 8 November, when I had heard nothing from her I told her in an email that if I did not hear from her by 11 November I would assume that her firm had no scientific proof that Aquafresh strengthens enamel, and I would write my story accordingly.  

          I got read reports on each occasion, but nothing more.

          How can this PERMORMANCE of Geyer’s possibly be described as a transparent backing of a product made by a company that can be trusted for its integrity? (See also: Are toothpaste manufacturer's claims true ) 

          Regards,              
          Jon, a fearless Consumer Watchdog.  
P.S. GSK and Colgate-Palmolive have been involved in a long running legal battle since 2017 after Colgate accused GSK of false advertising for Aquafresh. Colgate argued that it could not substantiate its claim that this toothpaste offered 24 hour protection against glucaric acid, which was on the packaging and in adverts. South Africa's ASA initially found in favour of Colgate and ordered GSK to cease making this claim. GSK then took the matter to higher and higher courts where it has yet to be finalised             

P.PS. DStv is a direct broadcast African satellite service owned by MultiChoice that has about 12-million subscribers mostly in South Africa.                 

                                           

HAS DStv's CLAIMS THAT SHOWS ARE 'ALL NEW', 'BRAND NEW' AND 'NEW' NOW BEEN TOTALLY DISCREDITED

Dear DStv subscribers,

Jodi Arias the show off  killer

          It seems that DStv, the pay television arm of Multichoice that has tarnished its reputation with so many repeats is not at all bothered about damaging it still further by continuing to make out that programmes are new when they are not.

This is in spite the fact that the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has told it to stop fabricating promotional material on more than one occasion.         

          It again shows how toothless the ASA is. It was established by the adverting industry as its internal policeman and had to be placed under business rescue two years ago. Now it doesn’t appear to be able to ensure that transgressions it has ruled against do not go on being repeated in similar forms by the same firm.  

          In the last few weeks DStv has been extensively promoting “Jodi Arias from Lust to Murder. All new Tuesday 10 April” on the Investigation Discovery (ID) channel. And when I complained that this was not new as I had seen it on DStv before I got this reply from Alet Bensch, MultiChoice’s Content Bouquet Manager.

Alet Bensch

          “I can confirm this is a brand new series, although the subject matter has been dealt with in other programmes previously, and a film called ‘Lust to Murder - Jodi Arias’ was aired on another channel last month. But no promos for the film were aired.”

          In my email reply to her I stated: “I don’t accept your explanation that this is a ‘brand new series.’ It can hardly be ‘all new’ (my underlining) when by your own admission it is not.

          “This is the kind of dishonesty that the Advertising Standards Authority told DStv to stop doing, isn’t it?

          “If I tell you a marginally different version of a story you have already heard does that make my story ‘all new’?

          “DStv’s ‘all new’ promotions have now been totally discredited because once one of them is found to be a lie how can your company expect anybody to believe anything else it claims?”

          She justified it still further by replying: “The series is indeed 100% new. None of theses episodes have aired, therefore they are ‘new’ if they have not aired before even though the subject matter was covered on other channels.”

          Significantly she was now referring to it as ‘new’ rather than ‘all new.’ And she ended her email with this most telling remark: “We are not promoting the topic as new - only the programming.”

          I then told her: “Sorry Alet that’s just splitting hairs to say ‘We are not promoting the topic as new - only the programming.’ How is the average person supposed to know that? Surely they are only interested in the topic not your programming. I bet if you took a survey among viewers and asked them what they thought the description ‘all new’ means they would say it means that it was something that was completely new that had not been shown on DStv before or some people might even go as far as believing that this meant it had never been aired anywhere else before.

“Whichever way you look at it this kind of thing has a touch of dishonesty about it. This is what con men do – they make something out to be far better than it actually is and I can’t understand why DStv has to resort to this sort of promotion when it virtually has a monopoly of paid TV in South Africa.”

I wonder how many people at DStv watch their own shows because late on the night of Thursday April 12 the promo for the Jodi series kept stating it would begin on Tuesday which was the10th of April, when it did actually start. This was shown repeatedly throughout the evening. Then shortly before midnight what I assume was a repeat of the first episode of the series was shown to add to the confusion of viewers.

Jodi murdered her boyfriend in 2008 by stabbing him 20 times while he was in the shower. Described as one of the most bizarre and salacious trials in American history it did not end until 2013 when she was convicted of first degree murder. She is currently serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

DStv evidently believes that promoting just about everything as ‘all new,’ ‘brand new” or ‘new’ is the way to get people watching. Here’s a sample from the ID channel in addition to the Jodi Arias one – All new Bride Killa; All new Home Alone; New series Murder Chose me and The 1980s the Deadly Decade The new Series.

And then there is the Brand New Shifting Gears on the Discovery channel.

          I don’t know how true these statements are, but isn’t it shooting itself in the foot if this way of promoting shows is not believable?

          Just a couple of months ago the ASA slammed it in a ruling that reflected badly on MultiChoice.

          “One would not expect the label ‘brand new’ to be applied to a show that has been available in South Africa since 2013,” it stated.

          MultiChoice can hardly be “enriching lives” as it claims if its morality sinks to this level.

          The ASA found that the claim that “Mom 3 brand new season. Tuesday on Comedy Central” was misleading. This was the ASA’s wishy, washy way of saying it was not true. MultiChoice was ordered to withdraw the claim that this was new.

          Its pathetic defence was that even though Mom had previously been on DStv’s 101 channel it was new to Comedy Central (122).

          MultiChoice also got into hot water with the ASA for claiming there were 1800 movies a month available on DStv. It was told to provide the ASA with substantiation for its claim from an independent auditor.

DStv got so mixed up trying to justify that 1800 films
 a month story that it couldn't even count properly.
This is from the Business Report

          It’s not easy to find somebody else to vouch for your lies, so the ASA never received anything further from this entertainment company.

          The consumer’s complaint was upheld and MultiChoice was ordered to withdraw the claim.

          Regards

          Jon, a Consumer Watchdog, who doesn’t appreciate paying higher and higher DStv subscriptions if he can’t be sure that what he is being told about the shows, is true.

P.S. This may not be an ‘all new’ post of mine but I doubt that you will have read anything like it before - on my blog.

Note: Before I posted this I sent a copy to Calvo Mawelo DStv’s CEO, who I originally contacted. I invited him to comment or to make factual corrections if necessary. He merely suggested we have a meeting to discuss this, a suggestion I felt would not take the matter any further.

       

DO NASPERS & THE TISO BLACKSTAR GROUP COME FROM THE SAME "WEASEL" DENIAL SCHOOL?

Dear Readers,

Bob van Dijk

         In his column in the Sunday Times, which is part of the Tiso Blackstar (formerly Times Media) empire, Peter Bruce pointed out how Naspers' CEO Bob van Dijk had conveniently passed the buck when MultiChoice, one of Naspers' subsidiaries, came under fire for its dubious involvement with the Gupta family.

         In the latest South African Gupta scandal to surface MultiChoice, the pay TV business, was supposed to have paid the Guptas millions to become part of its DStv satellite service.

         Asked to comment Van Dijk told Moneyweb that this had nothing to do with Naspers, the giant Afrikaans media group, as it was MultiChoice’s baby.

         He told Moneyweb that as they had more than 100 firms they could not investigate every single issue that arose among them.

         “When you own more than 50% of a company you’re in charge,” Bruce told readers. “You’re responsible and you’re accountable.”

         He described Van Dijk’s “weasel explanation” as giving the impression that “ownership simple implies you get most of the profits and that’s where it ends.”

Koos Bekker is the Chairman of Naspers

         It would be nice if Bruce could draw this column of his to the attention of Andrew Bonamour, Blackstar’s CEO, because in my recent dealings with him I don’t think he is one of the Sunday Time’s keenest readers.

         A post I wrote entitled: “Exposed - the Sunday Time’s love affair with a crook”(exposed) was about how the business section of the paper (Business Times) had continued to employ Jim Jones as a freelance writer for eight years after they knew he was dishonest. By coincidence it was Moneyweb, the online financial publication, that he defrauded of the dollar equivalent of R200 000 while working for it as its Mineweb Editor.

         In compiling this I tried to get both the Editor Bongani Siqoko and Ron Derby who heads Business Times, to undertake never to use Jones again. All I got were read reports and nothing more.

         I then contacted Bonamour and after getting some very strange answers to my questions I sent him a copy of my proposed post(media chief) and he replied: “It’s bizarre that you should drag me into this when I don’t choose columnists, nor do I interfere in ST or any publication. Media accounts for 20% of our business. I had never heard of Jim Jones until you emailed me.

         “You are welcome to run whatever story you like.”

         Is this any different from the “weasel” way Van Dijk handled the MultiChoice inquiries?

         In the same edition of the Sunday Times in which one of Jones’ bylines appeared there was a letter from Dave Harris headed “Sunday Times is no holy cow” in which he warned: “The Sunday Times  always needs to take into account its own fallibility, otherwise it may be the case of people in glass houses throwing stones.”

         It would be nice if Peter Bruce remembered this.

         Regards,

         Jon, the Poor Man’s Press Ombudsman who reveals what the Media Club would prefer you didn’t know.

P.S. Weasel means not only the animal but a “deceitful or treacherous person.”

P.P.S. MultiChoice’s morality was again in the news when the Adverting Standards Authority ordered it to stop promoting shows as “new” when they weren’t. This was hardly necessary as every subscriber knows that new shows on DStv are almost as rare as the nearly extinct Brenton Blue Butterfly.

PATRICIA VAN ROOYEN - CEO IN A MILLION

Dear Consumers,

Patricia van Rooyen

          Have you ever had much joy trying to lodge a complaint directly with a Chief Executive Officer of a large company? Well in my limited experience even if you are able to get their direct email address the chances are they won’t answer you.

          Your inquiry will tumble down the line to some lesser minion.

          That’s exactly what happened when I emailed Maria Ramos (Absa's Star), the CEO of the giant Barclays Africa Group that includes Absa Bank, about a problem I was having getting a refund when my credit card was scammed.

          Perhaps you think I’m being unreasonable but my feeling is that as Maria made her personal email address (maria.ramos@absa.co.za) available to the likes of me she should have answered my emails personally. Either that or she should have ensured that her personal email address was not available to ordinary bank clients like me.

          Patricia van Rooyen on the other hand is a very different, special CEO when it comes to customer service. She heads the M-net pay television’s Sub-Sahara region.

I accept that the M-net is a good bit smaller than the banking empire that Maria heads even if M-net does stretch across Africa, but I don’t think that invalidates my point.

          As an M-net subscriber I have raised several matters with Patricia in the past and she has always replied to my emails almost instantly and my problems have been sorted out quickly.

          So when I saw a disturbing report in The Times by that ace consumer journalist Wendy Knowler I sent this email to Patricia.   

      “I was appalled to read in Wendy Knowler’s column in The Times today that Multichoice (part of M-net) is doing its best to force subscribers to buy new decoders by not repairing or replacing old ones. Talk about an unscrupulous business practice. Loyal subscribers like myself, who have been with Multichoice for something like 20 years could find themselves forced to buy a new decoder by this deplorable business practice. How many people would buy something that might need to be repaired in the future if they were told this might not happen? How long will it be before this make money at all costs firm decides that it’s time to drum up more business by not repairing the decoders that people are being forced to buy now? Just because M-net/Multichoice have got a virtual monopoly it’s no excuse for treating customers like dirt to be milked and then discarded, just to try and make more and more money. It’s customer relations at its worst.”

          This was Patricia’s reply: “Allow me to put some perspective on the matter. All hardware and software technology changes and improves over time. This applies to cellphones, laptops, PCs etc. A decoder is no different. It is very unlikely that if I have a Nokia cellphone that is 10 years old, and I take it in for repairs that anyone will be able to repair it – as the parts will probably not be available. They will tell me to rather buy a new phone; it will be cheaper to buy a new phone anyway. So – in a nutshell – there are simply some very old models of decoders that we can no longer support. They have a lifespan, and at some point they become redundant.

          “When Microsoft tells their customers it is time for an upgrade of software no-one complains. Yet, if you had a PC that was 10 years old you would not be able to upgrade your Microsoft. The software and the hardware must both be upgraded for the software to work. The new decoder software will simply not work on old decoders. We really don’t have any intention of treating our customers badly – on the contrary we want them to have great viewing experience, hence upgrades in both software and hardware are necessary so our viewers can have great features like Box Office, catch up, remote record and, and, and.

          “Maybe our problem is that we don’t explain ourselves well. Maybe we should tell our customers that the life span of a decoder is approximately 6 years and then it will need to be replaced. We make no money on the sale of decoders. In fact we subsidise the price to try and make them more affordable. So every single decoder we sell costs us money.”

          “Not sure if I make sense, but that really is the situation.”

          I replied thanking her for the explanation and getting another of her executives to clarify some other questions I had.

          BUT THE REAL POINT OF THIS POST IS THIS. MY INITIAL EMAIL TO HER WAS SENT ON TUESDAY AUGUST 25 AT 12:14 AM.

          SHE REPLIED AT 10.18 PM ON THE SAME DAY SAYING “SORRY I AM ONLY GETTING BACK TO YOU NOW.”

          YOU KNOW WHERE PATRICIA, WHO IS BASED IN JOHANNESBURG, WAS – IN LAGOS, WEST AFRICA.

          NOW THAT’S SERVICE FOR YOU.

          Regards,

          Jon, the Consumer Watchdog who believes in praising the good as well as taking the bad to task.

P.S. In my final email to her I added: “I am sure this will never be necessary as I will be gone long before you, but if it happens the other way round your efficiency is such that if I sent you an email you would answer it from heaven.”