Talk about the spirit of NOT giving for the festive season. I'm shocked, shocked, shocked by what's happening with
Idols winner Musa Sikwene's Christmas album.
In case you don't know, Universal Music are releasing a 4-track mini album by Musa in time for Christmas - which could be cool because an Idol winner's never done this before.
BUT, and it's a ginormous BUT, the only people who can get it are people with Samsung Galaxy smartphones who'll access it via the Kleek music app.
It's beyond ridiculous and an unbelievably sad move by both Universal and the show. Viewers have already paid for the show by paying for DStv, many have paid to vote for the competition and now people have to pay to buy a Samsung phone if they want to hear their winner's music. It's madness!!! It needs to be on multiple platforms so that everyone can get it.
Now the result will be that everyone won't. The impact of the album will suffer and there isn't any festive spirit surrounding the album at all.
Similarly distressing is that a very similar thing's happening on Muvhango with Standard Bank and the product placement advertising going on in the show.
The situation's been going on for months and if you take a look at the
December teasers you'll see that on the 23rd of December Mankosi wants to "know more about the Standard Bank Society Scheme".
I almost died choking when I saw that it's now part of the teasers. As if a character in a soapie suddenly needs the details of a particular bank explained to them. It's such a lowdown sham!
A big problem is that it completely undermines the integrity of the show. Even though dramas and soapies are fiction they usually attempt to explore some semblance of truth. In Muvhango's case, the truth about Venda culture, the conflicts and the other truths the show's explored over the years.
With Standard Bank paying to be spoken about in the show it isn't honest or sincere anymore. It's got a different agenda. It's manipulating something fans love into an underhanded sales pitch.
Between Idols and Muvhango the situation delivers a very
un-festive blow to viewers.