I’m putting the following comments at the top of this week’s column in the obscure hope that someone, somewhere in M-Net might pay attention to them. As I say it’s an obscure hope. M-Net, as a rule, don’t pay much attention to ought but their own council. They certainly don’t demonstrate much discernible consideration for their customers when it comes to the presentation of their product.
M-Net will tell you often and loudly how much “magic” is out there for the gathering. What they won’t tell you is anything about the too-often crude manner in which they toss their magic at the paying customers. I imagine it must be because, being a virtual monopoly, M-Net feel they don’t need to attend to any of those silly small things. “Let the suckers take it” is obviously the prevailing ethic.
Let me give you an example. Recently M- Net and the Movie Magic channel have been showing those two delightful French films, Jean de Florette and the sequential Manon of Spring. When the first was shown, the Movie Magic channel logo was moved from its usual location at the bottom right-hand corner of the screen, for the very sensible reason that down there it would interfere with the subtitles of the movie.
Not so for Manon of Spring. When that was shown not only the logo but an entirely inappropriate violence and language warning triangle were displayed at either bottom corners of the screen. Both were left there for the entire movie where they efficiently obliterated much of the subtitles.
Needless to say enjoyment of the movie was shafted. I telephoned the local M-Net customer line, had to wait 12 minutes to speak to someone to be told curtly that there was nothing that could be done.
The same lack of professional standards occurred on at least three occasions I saw last week. A sex and violence warning logo stayed on one movie for 35 minutes, another two throughout the entire films simply because M-Net’s final control obviously don’t give a blind damn about the customers.
If you aren’t already one, let me warn you that being an M-Net customer means you have to undertake a secret contract. Once you’ve bought your decoder and paid your subscription, you are expected to sit back and let M-Net throw the programmes at you with all the style and finesse of a garbage disposal truck.
Nor is Multichoice’s vaunted Electronic Programme Guide (EPG) much help as it often bears little relation to what eventually gets broadcast.
In the case of Manon of Spring the EPG announced the movie while trailers on M- Net announced a different film. Granted that keeping accurate control of such a vast output of programmes must be extremely difficult, but that isn’t really an excuse.
Anyway, why the intrusive station logos? There can only be one explanation, that television stations place their commercial interests ahead of all else. They say that they put logos on the screen so that viewers know what they are watching. They must have an awfully low opinion of their viewers, any of whom only have to glance at their decoders or their tuners to know where they are.
In watching the South African cricketers in their current series I see that some members of the team have adopted the entirely disgusting habit of their footballer counterparts: the frequent expectoration of great mouthfuls of gob. Captain Hansie Cronje is the worst of all offenders, regularly emitting long glistening ropes of phlegm.
Perhaps to the drinks break could be added a expectoration break in which the players could gather around a giant spittoon and get rid of it all – behind screens one can only hope. It may be an old-fashioned view, but spitting in public was always something on a par with that other charming habit of holding a finger to one’s nostril and venting liquid snot out of the other one.
Next time you need to get rid of your bodily fluids, Hansie, why not just wander over and take a leak on the nearest billboard – preferably a Castle Lager one. You could hawk a few mouthfuls over the spectators at the same time. But if you are going to represent us, at least instruct your team in the kind of public conduct that doesn’t make us wince in embarrassment. And while you’re about it, get rid the bloody chewing gum, too. You look just like Australians.