adminMr Sachikonye recently retired from the advertising business after 12 years to pursue this media idea that is designed to grow with Africa — a kind of YouTube for people with little internet access. He said he was convinced to pursue the idea after he got buy-in from two of his colleagues in London.
“I convinced them to buy into my idea of promoting African user generated content. They loved the idea and immediately agreed to do it — but only if I set it up and do the hard work,” he said.
In February this year he moved to Manchester and set up a production studio for A TV.
“Manchester gives us access to the same kind of talent and ideas that the BBC have. We just need to work smarter because we have a miniscule fraction of the resources they have. But I have been in this situation many times before, where my own labour forms a huge part of the capital outlay,” he said.
He added that A TV is now working closely with the local Salford University to develop some key concepts around media and news gathering and has recruited students from the university to help with the effort.
“Students are a great resource if they are given the right management and support. We are now plugged into that university and will continue sharing some of our innovations and thinking; and in Zimbabwe, we have started a major initiative to work with many different colleges in similar capacities,” he said.
One of the key ideas behind A TV, Mr Sachikonye said was developing citizen journalism.
“We are researching story formats, the most suitable equipment to use, editing programmes, workflows — how best to help a person in Murambinda share the happiness around the birth of his son or tell his grandmother’s life story.”
A TV which is available free-to-air throughout sub-Saharan Africa, acts as the aggregator and distributor with information feeds from Facebook, sms, email, news agencies, independent producers and other inputs.
“We are working on a print initiative to facilitate distributing and promoting information, doing more work on cellphones as a distribution platform, and negotiating
ideas on how to input from radio and other mainstream media. We have viewers in Nigeria, Tanzania, Zambia, Malawi and, of course, Zimbabwe.
“However, our initial focus is Southern Africa. Once we get this right we will move into other regions. We are going to do a viewership count at the end of the year. Our target is two million regular participants by the end of the year, and soon after that to have a reach and influence that equals BBC World in Southern Africa,” he said.
Online Reporter