PRICE INCREASE

I would like to hear your motivation for the high price of your magazine.

The book isn’t worth the price, and in my opinion, the book is only to inform readers about programmes. With the removal of e.tv, there are even fewer programmes for DStv viewers to enjoy. I don’t think there’s a lot of work and research to put together this magazine, and I think you’ll agree. The blockbuster competitions and games, as well as some of the other articles, just to give the book some body. Get ready for a big drop in sales at that ridiculously high price. – CHRIS, BY SMS

Dear Chris,

I answered you directly, but I know that many readers are wondering about this, so an official explanation about the price increase is being given. It breaks my heart every time we have a price increase. I realise that the magazine is expensive and believe me, I wish it was cheaper. With everything going up in price, we had to adjust our price as well. Just think of the petrol that it now costs to get the magazines on the shelf in your local store.

Something I definitely want to address is your belief about the magazine. There’s a false impression that tvplus is an easy magazine to put together. I have worked on several titles in my career, and tvplus is one of the most difficult. We are a small team that needs to know our story properly. Hours of planning go into each article. We research actors before interviews so

that we can ask important questions that involve them, their characters and the show. Additionally, we need to look at the shows to make sure our questions are correct. Sometimes it takes me more than a day just to prepare for an interview. And then it still needs to be done and written!

Every little snippet of quick facts about an actor involves hours of research. There is no quick fix or shortcuts to take. And we have to work with the content that is available and the channels that most of our viewers have. That’s why we don’t give more space to streaming services, because even though there are thousands of people watching it, it’s not our main target market. It’s also not true that channels eagerly feed us with information. We need to do our own homework for programmes that are starting. Most of the time, our magazine is already on the shelf when the channels let us know about a show that’s starting.

It may seem like we have two weeks to work on a magazine, but unfortunately it doesn’t work that way. Even some of the content we try to get in early, like the movie guide, has changes again by the time we go to the printer. Our team is small and works extremely hard and we dig ourselves into TV and programmes to be experts and be able to present quality articles. If it doesn’t come through like that in the magazine, I’m doing my job wrong! It’s not like we get pay rises when the price goes up either. I apologise if this sounds like a rant because yes, we will lose readers due to the high price, but the only other solution was to close the magazine. I really hope enough people find our content meaningful, entertaining and informative enough to still pay the price for it because they love TV as much as we do.