Splitting hairsThe good, the bad and the laughable |
Who’s top of the pops in media this year?
EAST LONDON - Let us repose in this, my last media column for the year, to look back at 2009 and dish out awards for those who have delivered us our news. It has been an annus horribilus for advertising spend and some rose to the challenge; others fell victim to the recessionary beast but the hacks kept on reporting, giving us insight and entertainment. One of my favourite quotes of the year came from Dilbert creator Scott Adams, who said in April: "You don't want to be happy about the bus plunging into the ravine but on the other hand, it's good for business. Whenever there's more angst and unhappiness, it's fodder for humour." Ja, nee!
Most Interesting Repositioning:
Radio 2000 quietly transformed from a service station into a proper adult radio station with a wide selection of music and some pretty decent DJs. Even the breakfast bloke, Just-Ice, with his peculiar mid-Atlantic accent, turned out to be well informed, intelligent and rather amusing.
Most-Needed Relaunch:
The Times' website rebranded as Times Live, integrating the news of the Sunday Times and its little sister, The Times, and has gotten rather deft at breaking news lately.
Least-Needed Redesign:
Though there was nothing offensive about the News24 website's new design earlier in the year, it masks the groups' wide content offering from newspapers such as Beeld, Die Burger, Rapport and the Daily Sun. While a cleaner design with fewer entry points has served Times Live well, it makes News24 seem far less than it is.
Silly Buggers of the Year:
Avusa reported horrendous interim results and then peppered its analysts' report with useless figures while leaving out crucial numbers from its biggest revenue earner, the Sunday Times, and its loss-making daily newspaper, The Times. The analysts, of course, weren't fooled.
The Made in China Award for Savvy Digital Play and Media Company of the Year:
A week after the Avusa silliness, Naspers came out with excellent interims and sat back while we all lauded them for their investment in Chinese internet services firm Tencent that brought R1bn into its coffers in the reporting period. Nice.
Balls-Up of the Year:
The SABC. Need I say more.
Surprise Move of the Year:
Willie Kirsh's departure from the Primedia broadcasting and entertainment group. Kirsh took over Talk Radio 702 from his father a decade earlier and turned it into one of the biggest media companies on the block. He bailed this year, apparently to spend more time with his family. A down-gearing we'd all like to make one day.
Most Interesting Newcomer:
The Daily Maverick website, born out of the defunct magazine, The Maverick. Its Huffington Post design is very on trend and it's netted some excellent writers, such as Kevin Bloom and Tim Cohen. Will it survive? Too early to tell just yet but founder Branko Brkic is a pretty ruthless businessman and if it doesn't meet his targets, I don't think he'll hesitate to pull the plug.
Most Promising Newcomer:
TechCentral, started by former Financial Mail journalist Duncan McLeod. It's niche - reporting on the tech scene, communications and media - so it has excellent advertising pull and it's also a one-man band so the cost is low.
Most Consistently Entertaining Website or Blog:
2OceansVibe, one of the oldest blogs in South Africa, started by savvy Capetonian Seth Rotherham. Well, that's not his real name but I've promised not to blow his persona and that's what the site is all about: genius marketing. Rotherham's "work is a sideline, live the holiday" credo has netted him a loyal audience, who give him lots of story tips, pics and free content. Rotherham also makes a healthy profit and has diversified into video for the web.
Best News Website:
OK, maybe I'm biased as I'm a Moneyweb columnist but this site covers South Africa in a consistently lively and insightful manner, which is why you're here.
Story of the Year:
The Caster Semenya saga. No doubt about it. Semenya burst on to the international scene with a spectacular race and then questions about her gender riveted the world. The unfolding story was unbelievably compelling, filled with shady politics, drama, pathos and tragedy.
Gob Smacker of the Year:
Former Anglo bigwig Graham Boustred came completely out of leftfield when he took pot shots at women, Muslims and blacks from his retirement pad in England. It went down like a lead balloon in South Africa and we presume he emigrated to the Isle of Man.
Wag the Dog Award:
Frustrated bandwidth users across the land danced on their laptops when a KwaZulu-Natal call-centre firm stuck it to Telkom with Winston the Pigeon. With four gigs of data attached to his little leg, the intrepid fellow covered the distance between Howick and Hillcrest faster than the firm's Telkom ADSL line. In total, it took two hours, six minutes and 57 seconds for Winston to reach Hillcrest and to upload the data. By that time, the ADSL transmission of the same data size was 4% complete.
Quotes of the Year:
David Bullard came up with this little nugget in his Out to Lunch column on Moneyweb on suggestions he should move on from his battle with the Sunday Times: "Some men play golf, some hold poker evenings and some play squash. I prefer an hour of recreational loathing every morning."
Nando's marketing head Sylvester Chauke on a Julius Malema puppet that starred in a withdrawn Nando's TV advert and later went up for auction: "We do expect him to fetch a good price - he has become a celebrity overnight. And his whole wardrobe comes out of the Woolworths children's section. He's completely on trend."
And 79-year-old Colin White, a retired East London high court judge, told the Daily Dispatch newspaper when he graduated with a Masters in history from Rhodes: "You've got to have something other than your bladder to get you up in the morning."
Famous Last Words of the Year:
In March, ANC president Jacob Zuma said South Africans were being big meanies about buddy Schabir Shaik because we were waiting for him to die after being told by Correctional Services that he was in the final stages of terminal illness: "You can't say so many officials, all the way up to the minister, were all corrupt and dishonest and wanted to smuggle a prisoner out. It can't be." Hmm. Pass the nine iron, please.
Most Galling Quote of the Year:
Our national planning minister, Trevor Manuel, quipped in Parliament after the Democratic Alliance said that Western Cape Premier Helen Zille had ordered that her MECs use a pool-car system of second-hand vehicles: "So, we'd all like to be more Catholic than the Pope, and we commend the honourable Zille on having attained that status, but let's be real about this issue as well." Manuel was referring to the fact that there was no point in returning his million-buck BMW because of the loss in value. We were not amused.
Only in South Africa Awards:
The story about the construction worker who unearthed a cooler box stuffed with R1.5m in R50 and R20 notes in a ditch in Edenvale. He thought it was a bomb so the cops were called in. Oops. The box later disappeared on route between the Edenvale police station and the Reserve Bank. The construction worker, 25-year-old Roger Nkuna, must have stared deeply into his beer more than a few times since then and pondered Cruel Fate. "I will be very angry if the money has gone missing," he was quoted as saying at the time.
The three jokers who voted ANC in the national election in Orania, the Afrikaner Never Neverland in the Northern Cape. (The Freedom Front Plus won 242 out of 279 votes cast. The DA got 26. Cope and the ACDP each received three and two votes were spoilt.) This after ANC Youth League President Julius Malema went on a charm offensive in Orania. There must have been dark mutterings in the pub that night.
An enraged man arrested by the cops after threatening to blow up his fiancée while brandishing a bazooka in the Firkin Fun Pub in Pretoria. One of the cops who nabbed the Centurion man said he apparently got the device for a Halloween party in 2008 and had forgotten to return it.
The cobra that took a 170km joy ride with a Pretoria couple on their way home from the Kruger National Park. Sixty-nine-year-old Gordon Parratt had this to say about spotting the snake next to his left foot on the floor of the car: "Fortunately, I'm not the panicky type. My wife immediately put her feet up on the dashboard." Later, the couple couldn't find the reptile when they stopped and searched for it but, fearing that their car would get stolen at a taxi rank in Hazyview, they drove on.
And, finally, the Viral Clips of the Year Awards go to:
Vuma Zuma! Hoards of South Africans watched this YouTube clip of President Jacob Zuma dancing up a storm at an ANC election victory party.
And then there was Ras Dumisani, who mangled the national anthem at a rugby game in Paris. I just love the way Schalk Burger turns around at the end to catch the glimpse of the tuneless plonker behind him.
* Media columnist Gill Moodie spent 14 years as a salaried hack in print media in South Africa and the UK before escaping to the blogosphere and freelance journalism. She is the publisher of Grubstreet http://grubstreet.co.za/ in between unpacking and packing the infernal dishwasher and bringing up a four-year-old with attitude.
ADD YOUR COMMENT
 |
Price and trade data source: JSE Ltd. All other statistics calculated by Profile Data. |
 |