Support initiatives for the restarting of the drives - Comments and caution

Quite a number of you have written to us about what can be done to restart the drives and, specifically, what they can do. As others might have the same questions, I thought it might be a good idea to write my reply publicly in a blog, rather than answer individually.

The situation is that we are actively looking for alternatives and different ways of bringing back safaris in a viable manner. There is nothing concrete at the moment, other than first contacts and explorations.

Until such time as this takes more shape there is not much you, as our viewers and supporters, can do. We hope to be able to come with news and plans early in the new year, but as said, cannot commit to anything fixed as we're still in the very early stages of reaching out.

A simple restart at Djuma in the same set-up is at this point in time not on the cards for a number of reasons. That is not to say we won't return (or stay, depending on how you look at it) there, but not in the next several months.

WildEarth is currently not actively involved in, or supporting, any 'rescue missions' and while we are grateful for all efforts and appreciate the support they reflect, I would ask everyone, as I've asked those that wrote to me, to 'keep their powder dry' until there is something concrete to put your efforts behind as that will be much more effective.



Finally, a note of caution on on-line safety. In times like these one needs to tread with extra caution as, while most efforts and requests for help are genuine and with only good intentions, there might be others that have less noble intents. In the past some people have abused trust of other viewers on Facebook and other networks to solicit personal information for, probably, malicious intent.

So, be especially careful with sending money or personal information as part of support initiatives and be sure to check and know how and where these might be used.

Aside from the CafePress stores and the tip jar, neither Djuma nor WildEarth are involved in any money-raising efforts, nor are we part of any efforts requiring personal information to be sent beyond a viewer's e-mail address and nick name.

While the following is not a comment on the intent of any specific initiatives, we advise against sending such info as a matter of principle. Unless you are 100% certain you know its intended use, and that it will only be used for this, and you know the person who'll be receiving it is who they claim to be, it is wise to not share anything you would not be comfortable sharing with a stranger you meet on the street.

If you are not sure whether something is supported by WildEarth or Djuma, feel free to ask us. (admin 'at' djuma.com will go to Jurie, contact 'at' wildearth.tv will come to us.)

Thanks for all your support,

Peter

More zoomies wanted!

If all goes well we will be adding a number of moveable cameras over the next couple of months. Possible there will be a second cam at Djuma and it looks like we will add one or two waterhole cams in other exciting locations as well.

We had hoped these last would be running already, but red tape has proven quite sticky and has slowed the launch of these down.

As we do expect them fairly soon, and also in view of the holiday season that will soon be upon us, we'd like to bolster the zoomie numbers a bit so we can get the new ones trained before the rush starts.

If you are interested in helping out, have moderate computer skills and 10 hours/week available for zooming, drop me a note at zoomies@wildearth.tv with some info on your location, skills, time available and why you'd like to be a zoomie.

Everyone is welcome but we would particularly like to find more zoomies outside of North America to be better able to fill slots around the clock.

A number of you have contacted me already and I have your names, but feel free to resend your information now so I can have it all in one spot.

Thanks!

--Peter

Stopping of drives at Djuma at the end of November

As you might have seen from Djuma's most recent blog, they have had to decide to stop the Safaris at the end of this month. While this is obviously a sad moment for all involved, we respect Djuma's decision and know it was not an easy one to take as the safaris are in Jurie's and Pippa's blood as much as in yours and ours. I do wish to thank them both for having tried to keep them going, even if in the end it turned out to be for a short period only.

Now what does this mean for the future? Is this the definite end of WildEarth's safaris or of our close ties with Djuma? 'No' in both cases.

WildEarth and Djuma go back a long way and will keep working closely together in the future as well. We provide whatever support we can from our side to make it possible for Jurie to get his second 'roving' camera up and running. (This would be a similar set-up to the wild dog den we broadcast from some years ago.)

As for the safaris: We are certainly not giving up on them and are looking into how we can bring them back in the future. Exactly how and when, and whether once again from Djuma or from a new location, remains to be seen but we simply love them too much to just give up and let this be the final chapter and close the book.

--Peter

WE need you help

Well this morning (South African time) Pete left Cape Town and flew to Johannesburg, and now he is driving down to Djuma. His mission? To get all systems ready for the relaunch of the LIVE safaris on Wednesday (the 17th August) morning. Marc and Seb are back in camp, as of yesterday, and Becky will be filling in for Tara while she is still on holidays in England (until the end of August, when she returns to Djuma). There are still a few issues with the radio link from Djuma to Hoedspruit which need to be worked out before the Internet connection is good enough for streaming, but Pete and Jurie (and a few others) are working hard to get this all done by Wednesday morning.

In the meantime WE need to get ready to do our piece when they get the safaris LIVE. What exactly is 'our piece'? 

Well many of you have offered to help WildEarth and Djuma increase the viewership of the Djuma Safari and Djuma Waterhole cams so that enough advertising revenue can be earned to pay Marc, Tara and Seb's salaries as well as the food, fuel, Internet bandwidth, maintenance and other costs that it takes to keep these safaris LIVE. To make this happen WE need to about double the current viewership. Over the past few weeks we have received literally hundreds of ideas to do just that. Some have been super good but just not very practical to implement, and after a great deal of discussion we have settled on 5 basic ideas.

The five ideas, that we are going to start with, to promote the cams are:

Embedding the players in as many high traffic sites as possible.

Advertising the fact that these streams are available to be watched.

Trying to get as much press for these cams as possible.

Getting the safaris into more schools.

Selling merchandise that encourages people to visit wildearth.tv and/or djuma.com

Obviously we don't want to start actually getting any of this promotion 'out there' before the safaris are back on air. It would just be a waste having people coming to visit pages where there was nothing happening, but we do need to start getting organised ...

The first thing that we need to do is call for volunteers and get all the volunteers organised into teams. We have chosen to use Yahoo Groups as a place to gather, discuss, debate and plan all our promotional activities, because Yahoo Groups has worked super well for the zoomies up till now. Here we can have little databases which keep a record of which journalists have been contacted, merchandise that has been approved, embedded players, etc. We can also maintain calendars of which schools will be interacting on the safaris when and files with docs explaining all the processes for advertising and so much more. 

So if you are interested in volunteering your time, money, contacts, experience or passion to make these safaris successful the first thing you need to do is choose the team you want to join and send an email to that team address explaining what you have available to contribute. Here are the teams:

WEadvertise - Many people offered to donate money to keep the safaris running, but this cannot work as we cannot employ people in the hope that there will be enough donations each month to pay salaries. However, if you are willing to donate money to keep the safaris running then this is the team for you! This team will share ideas and experience in buying advertising on the Internet (Google Adwords or Facebook or other) and driving traffic to djuma.com, wildearth.tv or one of the Facebook pages where these cams are embedded. The idea is to very carefully buy advertising that can reach the kind of people that you think would like these cams and grow our viewership. weadvertise@wildearth.tv

WEmerchandise - This team not only helps grow our viewership, but you can also make money doing it! Thats right YOU can make money in this team. You can design and sell T-shirts, caps, ... anything as long as it includes the WildEarth and Djuma logos as well as web addresses and encourages people to visit our cams. WE and Djuma will supply you with logos and high resolution photographs, for FREE, and you can sell your products to the WildEarth community and keep 100% of the profits for yourself. However, the two rules are (1) each product must promote our web addresses and increase traffic, and (2) all artwork and merchandise has to be pre-approved by WildEarth and Djuma management. wemerchandise@wildearth.tv

WEpress - If you can write, or you have contacts in the media world, or you have the time to find lots of journalists email addresses and communicate with them, then this is the team for you. The WEpress team will focus on trying to get as many articles, TV/radio interviews, etc. for WildEarth and Djuma. This could have a very very large impact on traffic and could be the way that YOU make a large difference. wepress@wildearth.tv

WEeducate - WildEarth, and Djuma, has always been about teaching people about our natural world. Not lecturing people, but more immersing them in this environment and letting the learning happen. One of the greatest contributions any of us can make is to take this special experience into our children's lives through schools. Its been happening for a long time, but now we are going to encourage and organise school participation in our safaris. If you would like to be a part of the team that takes LIVE safaris, where kids can ask the ranger questions and get answers all the way from Africa, then this team is for you. weeducate@wildearth.tv

WEembed - At the end of the day what is going to make this all work is the number of people that WE can get to watch the stream. The team that focuses on taking the cams to where the audiences are is the WEembed team. This is all about reaching out to high traffic sites where the kind of people that we think would enjoy a LIVE safari or waterhole cam already visit and convincing them to embed our cams into their websites. So if you have some time to surf the web, email webmasters and get our cams 'out there', then this is the team for you. weembed@wildearth.tv

WE don't want to make too many rules and want this to be a community project, so if you feel you can contribute to more than one team then by all means join more than one. But please don't join and then not get involved and help. This is just demoralising for those that are trying hard. In fact if some volunteer, but don't seem to in a position to contribute much time, energy, experience, contacts, etc. then we will politely suggest that you wait till you have the capacity. Remember however, that you don't need money, experience or contacts to make a difference. There are going to be plenty of things to do that just require time and passion. WE will all help each other.

So to begin with choose your team/s and send an email explaining what you can contribute to that team. Then WE will decide (quickly) who can join the official teams and you will receive an invite to join the relevant group/s. From there we will work in small teams to get the basic plans in place, organise ourselves and prepare for the relaunch ...

Thanks, in advance, to all those of you that have expressed a desire to help us make this work and will be volunteering for a team.

-Graham

The safaris are coming back next week!

WE are so excited to announce that if all goes according to plan the LIVE safaris from Djuma will be back on WildEarth at 06h30 (CAT) on 17th August 2011. 

Tara, Marc and Sebastien will be presenting, directing and operating the camera on the Ganda and will be doing so under the auspices of Djuma Game Reserve. As most of you know Safari Television was no longer able to afford to continue running the LIVE safaris in the way that they had and was forced to stop broadcasting. Djuma very kindly, and very courageously, stepped up and has agreed to cover the costs of operating these safaris for 3 months, in order to give us all an opportunity to make them viable. 

What does that mean, 'make them viable'? Well simply put it means that WE need to work together to increase the viewership of the safaris and the Djuma Waterhole Cam to the point that the Internet advertising served on these streams produces at least enough revenue to cover the operating costs of the safaris and the waterhole. The good news is that it is much cheaper for Djuma to operate this broadcast than Safari Television because they own the land and have an existing lodge, which means some of the costs are reduced or removed. However, we would still need to about double the current viewership. 

WE need your help to promote these cams, and are excited that so many people have said that they will help. Over the past few weeks WE have received many many ideas and suggestions and we have been having numerous internal discussions figuring out how best to proceed. Talking to Jurie at Djuma we have narrowed down a few key things that we think can make the difference and substantially increase the viewership of this amazing broadcast. They are: (a) embedding the cams in as many high traffic sites as possible, (b) running several Google Adwords campaigns, (c) getting as much press coverage as possible, (d) encouraging you to sell T-shirts and curios (where you keep all the money) but that promote Djuma and WildEarth, (e) providing branded buttons and banners to sites to promote the cams, (f) getting the streams into as many schools as possible and (g) as much social media campaigning as possible.

After the incredible success of the zoomie volunteer community (more than 40 volunteers) that control the Pete's Pond and Djuma Waterhole cameras, we have decided to build a new promotion community based on the same Yahoo group system. I will be putting out a new Blog on the weekend that will both explain each of the various promotional ideas in much more detail as well as explain how you can volunteer to be a part of the teams that will tackle each approach.

The first stage is get everybody that wants to be a part of this drive to make the safaris sustainable into the group, and organise exactly what we are going to do and how. WE don't want this to become an uncoordinated affair where the wrong messages are communicated or where we are all working at cross purposes to each other. So please make sure that you do volunteer and join up with everyone else and work together in teams. Also, we must make sure that we don't start promoting before the safaris are actually back on air. There is no point in driving traffic to a player where there is no broadcast. We are aiming for the 17th August, but there are some things that are not in our direct control (e.g. the radio network from Djuma to Hoedspruit) that has to be finalised before then. So lets get everybody (that volunteers) into the group, make sure we all understand everything and be ready to leap into action the minute the safaris start up again. More info in a few days ...

Thanks for all your ideas and emails of support. You truly are a very special community of viewers and I am sure that together WE can make these safaris successful enough that they will be broadcasting on WildEarth from Djuma for many years to come.

-Graham

Djuma saves the safari drives!

As you can read in the most recent Djuma blog, they have made the very generous offer to try and keep the daily Safaris going for at least a while longer. You can imagine our surprise and excitement when Jurie called us about this last week and asked us to explore with him if this could be done in a way that Djuma could afford. Since then we've gone through many different scenarios and have indeed managed to come up with a way that will work for Djuma.

At this point you might wonder why, if this can work for Djuma, it couldn't for Safari Television and that's a fair question to ask. There are a couple of important differences that explain this. As Djuma owns the 'resources', i.e. the land, access to the land, accommodation, a workshop, etc, it can operate at a much lower cost than any 'third party' operation could. Furthermore, Djuma can afford to run at a (limited) loss as the Safari drives is not their main business, but part of their marketing efforts.

With this lifeline that Djuma has provided it is up to us (WildEarth and its viewers) to, together with Djuma find ways to make this work and generate at least enough revenue to bring Djuma's cost within its allocated budget. This will probably mean some more advertising on the Safari broadcasts, but that alone will not be sufficient. We will also need to increase viewer numbers and this is where you, our viewers, can play a big role as well by spreading the word!

The drives will go of air for a little period of time while the close-down of Safari Television is completed and changes needed to allow Djuma to operate the drives are being implemented. The aim is to relaunch some time in the second half of August. This will also allow the new three-people crew (which will include Marc and Tara!) to start on the same leave schedule. (To allow running with only three people there only be drives for 6 weeks out of every 8 week period.) Djuma will share more detailed information over the coming days and weeks, so to keep up-to-date be sure to check their website, blogs and Facebook page.

To close off I'd like to thank Djuma, and Jurie and Pippa Moolman personally, for giving us a chance at keeping the drives going and continue to share with you what has become a second home to so many.

--Peter

Some Q&A on the end of drives on Safari Television

Hello all,

I have read through all your comments and questions and want to take this opportunity to address some of your questions and look at it a bit more from a WildEarth perspective as well.

As many of you know WildEarth is majority owner of Safari Television, but the two are separate companies. Therefore while this situation will have its impact, it will not result in WildEarth stopping its other activities.

I thought I'd write this in the form of a Q&A based on the most often seen questions.



Q: Will this affect other cameras on WildEarth.tv?

A: No, it will not. Safari Television is its own company and is the company that is stopping its operations. WildEarth will continue to operate and broadcast the other cameras on its platform, including the cam at Gowrie Dam which is owned and operated by Djuma (with support from WildEarth and the zoomies who control and move the camera).



Q: Who will be affected by this?

A: As Safari Television will completely stop operating and close down it will affect everybody at Safari Television. That means Marc, Tara, Herman, Sebastien, Craig, Siphiwe, Cynthia, Carol, and Will.



Q: Will archives remain accessible?

A: Yes, all recorded footage will remain accessible.



Q: Will the safaris never return?

A: Safari Television is ceasing its operations at the end of this month. This is final and unfortunately cannot be changed. Having said that, we are all passionate about these safaris and will certainly not give up on looking for ways to bring them back to you. We hope to be able to, at some time in the future, rise from the ashes and restart the drives. We will certainly try very hard to find a way to do this, but if it happens it will not be through Safari Television.



Q: Should we send money to initiatives that are posted by others to collect funds to keep the safaris going?

A: No, Safari Television currently has not been approached by nor has agreements with anybody for raising funds from donations. Any such efforts posted might be legitimate attempts to help, but the internet is also full of people with less noble intentions. We therefore discourage sending money to any such initiatives as it will not help and might even hinder future efforts to bring the drives back.



Q: Could switching to a subscription-based model provide enough revenue to keep this going?

A: No, unfortunately generating enough subscription revenue to cover the costs for even a limited safari operation is not feasible. Broadcasting a safari is expensive, it requires much more than some salaries and an internet connection. Even assuming the safari would have many times the number of viewers they have now and that all of them would all be willing to pay for a subscription, a subscription model would not cover these.



Q: Is there anything else we can do to keep the safaris going?

A: Unfortunately not at this time. We will certainly not give up on finding a different way to broadcast the safaris in the future, but we ask that you give us a bit of time to work through everything involved in the closing down of Safari Television's operations which is inevitable. We promise that once that is behind us we'll work hard on bringing safaris back in one form or another. No promises, other than that we'll try hard!



I'm sure there will be many more questions after this, or maybe there were some that I missed for this blog. I will attempt to answer those in a future blog.

--Peter