I watched the first episode of HBO’s House of the Dragon on DStv the first night it aired in South Africa. What a frustration to be honest.

The show is pretty good but thanks to DStv advertisements it was a bloody mess to follow.

The experience!

5 minutes of the show, then 10 minutes of ads, 5 minutes of the show, then 10 minutes of ads.

At a certain stage I wasn’t sure what the storyline was. The Prince was sitting in a tavern moaning about his brother the King then… ads… then someone told the King about his brother bitching about him in a…. more ads.

After the ads the King is screaming at the Prince and telling him… ads.

I am not really sure what they are angry about. I wish I could tell you and we could have a great discussion about who is right or wrong, but i simply can’t. If you would like to know about Outsurance or Steers, I can tell you about that. Because that is basically all I can remember because I had to ensure advertising water torture for the whole show.

House of the Dragon on the BIG screen

I have a massive UHD TV. I think it is something like 60″ and it gives you that cinema feel when you site in front of it. I fucking love it.

You see the dragons fly in the sky in detail, the battle scenes are amazing and the castles look big and bold. So I have heard.

Sadly that is not my experience because after the ads have stopped and the show starts again, DStv has another banner ad that pops up from the bottom for another 5-10 seconds. Something about being part of the House of the Dragon with Steers flame grilled something something. who give a shit.

Now I don’t watch any other shows on DStv. I watch sport when the Springboks are playing and sometimes Survivor on Catch-up. So I try another show live and basically this is the same experience. Ads ads ads. I have found that when watching the show on Catch-up you only get ONE ad at the start and then the rest of the show can be watched from the start to the end without any interruptions. So that is how I have watched the other 3 episodes.

Is DStv desperate for advertising money?

You pay a monthly premium to get access to premium content. Now my question is: Why should I get a less that premium experience by having to watch all these ads and distractions?

For Showmax, Netflix, Amazon and Disney+ I also pay the premium and I do not have ads. They make money without it. Yes, some are considering bring in ads onto their services but from what is speculated you will still have the option on premium packages to not be exposed to ads.

The only logical conclusion is that DStv is loosing subscribers and have to show more ads to make money. They simply haven’t figured out how to make money without it. Imagine buying a new Mercedes but every 10 kilos it just stops and first shows you an ad before you can continue on your journey. Is that a premium car? No. So would I call DStv a premium product? No. A premium customer is nothing more that a set of eye balls that they can use as part of their sales motivation stats to prospective advertisers.

I was one part of the marketing team for a national brand that advertised during a Springbok rugby home series. It cost a crap load of money for the 3 tests and the ad was clear. We had a sale and you could also visit our website.

Obviously you wanted to know if the ad spent resulted in more website visitors or feet through doors of the more than 10 stores at the time. To be frank it did Jack shit. Website traffic did not show an increase in visitors and our trend stayed the same. People came to the stores because of leaflets in their local news papers or because they wanted to physically see the product they saw on the website. The ad had no value.

Sorry advertisers

I got a call from Outsurance call centre who wanted to give me a comparative quote. I told them i would not be interested in doing business with them because their ad during House of the Dragon spoiled my experience. Steers will also not be seeing my money soon.

Yes I know it is childish and yes I know they are not the reason for the way DStv shows ads. But for me they are now associated with a bad experience.

That is what I like about Nando’s. Remember a year ago when they cancelled their sponsorship of Cliff Central shows because of the way Gareth Cliff dismissed racist struggles? Sure, this is not the same but it does show that they took a stand and did not want the association with the problem.

The DStv advertisers are currently receiving the negative attitude I have because of the negative experience with the platform on which they are advertising.

How do you fix the sentiment? I suppose the only way is to fix DStv advertising models, and teach them what the word premium actually means when it comes to benefits.

Till that day, just watch show on Catch-up. it will save you from starting a blog dedicated to moaning about it.