Guests at the magnificently macabre celebration spectacle, treated to everything from an American
Horror Story clown in a cage, naked derriere waiters and Game of Thrones characters could get
permanent tattoos from a tattoo artists if they wished.
Just over two years later, those tattoos has more permanence and will be lasting longer than what M-Net Edge did with
MultiChoice and M-Net shutting down M-Net Edge at the end of March 2017 – yet
another M-Net series channel extension edged out of existence.
Other DStv channels supplied by M-Net are gonners too.
The shuttering of the M-Net Movies
Showcase channel makes sense.
The closure of the M-Net Family channel
is neither here nor there. (From a brand perspective it's a bit of a net loss.
Instead of repurposing VUZU, MultiChoice and M-Net could rather have worked
harder to position M-Net Family as the "best" channel for the DStv Family
bouquet.)
The termination of M-Net Edge channel
however feels like a very serious regression on the part of MultiChoice and M-Net.
M-Net Edge isn't a lower regarded H2 standing behind History, or a Discovery
Science standing behind Discovery channel, but a FX standing alongside a FOX
with its own legitimate content street cred.
The loss of M-Net Edge is bad, although
M-Net says the content on M-Net Edge will be moved and packaged to M-Net.
Instead of the green Christmas tree with
its themed and fitting ornaments outside, and the white Christmas tree
inside with its own custom-fitted trimmings, M-Net says there will now just be one
tree – a better decorated tree – with all the ornaments on one M-Net premium
conifer on DStv Premium.
TV jingle bells for all, right?
Well, no.
You've see a heavy-laden
Christmas tree before, right?
That one with too much stuff on it - where what it is,
doesn't have a real chance to shine, entice and enchant because it's
overburdened with a cluttered look?
Get ready for the next new and latest,
real-time experiment with M-Net the channel.
How the content and sheer number of
titles and movies currently cycled through M-Net and through M-Net Edge can
possibly be packed/stacked/scheduled on just M-Net (DStv 101) is impossible.
It
simply cannot happen without some shows currently in prime time on both channels, dumped in late or
outside of primetime and with a dramatic scale back and regression in the
number of shows that M-Net used to have as "Express from the US" titles on the
M-Net and M-Net Edge channels.
That is a bad thing.
If the primary motivation for killing
off M-Net Edge is to have more content to funnel onto M-Net to reduce repeats,
that is the wrong motivation.
The real, right solution to fixing too
many repeats and empty holes on M-Net (DStv 101) isn't to cannibalise another
great channel but to commission and make, or buy more suitable content for the
channel of its own.
M-Net Edge - getting edged out of
existence on DStv at the same time as DStv subscribers are made to pay more
from April - isn't a throwaway, also-ran, type Cloo, Style Network, Esquire, CBS
Drama channel filled with stale, old content that can easily go away without
being missed.
Like AMC that's dull at times but
actually has premium programming like Fear the Walking, The Night Manager and
others, M-Net Edge deserved its legitimate channel spot and position.
Something – a great TV channel – is
being shut down and taken away from DStv subscribers when it served as an
excellent M-Net content dam "overflow" receptacle and a legitimate place holder
channel spot (hence its premium 102 channel position).
Two golden chains melted down to create
one "bumper" piece of jewelry doesn't necessarily mean that the sum of the
parts are equal to a bigger and better artistic expression.
How many more times will M-Net launch
new M-Net channels and then after a few months or years rip them away? It
damages channel loyalty.
The closure of M-Net Edge makes viewers less – not
more – inclined to invest emotionally, and in terms of their time, when a new
channel brand is launched because every time a new channel comes along that's shut down
later, the resistance is higher to really believe and trust in it (that it will
last).
If M-Net Edge can get snuffed out,
MultiChoice and M-Net are now signalling that basically any channel - not just
those low-rated third-tier repeat-filled channels but even prestige channels - are not guaranteed their existence and can be yanked.
Is M-Net really going to find space and
timeslots for all the HBO, Showtime, NBCUniversal's cable channel series from Suits
to The Magicians, CBS International's large number of series from NCIS Los Angeles to The Big Bang Theory, NBC's Chicago’s and
other series, Disney's stuff from Modern Family to The Fixer, Warner Bros.
stuff from Ellen to Riverdale and the cooking reality competition shows, the
newly introduced art films, the newly introduced foreign and European language
series – all on one channel?
Incredibly unlikely.
What's more likely
going to happen is a regression.
DStv subscribers will once again have to wait longer for more TV series to find a linear playout spot and be broadcast. There simply isn't space and there are only so many hours in a week's TV channel schedule.
DStv subscribers will once again have to wait longer for more TV series to find a linear playout spot and be broadcast. There simply isn't space and there are only so many hours in a week's TV channel schedule.
Keep in mind that internationally there's
more great TV shows being made every
single year – not less. 2017 will be another new high-water mark in terms of
the sheer number of series. How will M-Net as a channel keep from bursting at
the scenes/seams?
The oversupply of content for one
channel will also make it less likely for "lesser" series in terms of its niche
quality – Deutschland 83 for instance – to be bought. When your basket is full,
the threshold for M-Net to "bother" to acquire it goes down, not up.
M-Net had a need and gaps to buy to fill
a specific premium content TV destination, a channel that had to set itself
apart with its own identity and channel proposition. Now MultiChoice and M-Net
have one less. It means less specific, real-world pressure to buy certain stuff and by proxy, less
effort.
Mama eagle will fly less turns to bring
food for two birds in the nest than if there were three birds.
And when there's
two they won't get the same volume of food that three would have gotten, they will
get what's appropriate for two – it's a law of nature.
Why has Sky that has Sky1 and Sky2 (its M-Net)
not closed down its Sky Atlantic (on which the M-Net Edge template is based)?
Because it has enough content to sustain two real premium general entertainment
drama and series channels and the Sky Atlantic channel.
M-Net Edge could have kept running with
more than enough series. And with more TV shows that ever before constantly coming, M-Net and DStv could have continued to build and keep
South Africa's version of a Sky Atlantic alive.
In a video content sea awash with a lot of
ordinary run-of-the-mill TV trash, M-Net Edge stood out as one of the very few premium DStv "destinations".
It was a reason to get DStv Premium; it was a destination that
demanded attention and it was a place and a channel that viewers sought out to get
new, exciting, fresh and timeous content with buzz.
The termination of M-Net Edge means that
DStv and M-Net will have one less of these, and one less HD channel - and that is a big step backwards, not forward.
Now all that remains is for TV critics, shaking their heads
at yet another edgy departure, to find the number of a good tattoo removal
artist.
