adminLovemore Zigara/Bongani Ndlovu Showbiz Correspondents
COMEDIAN, Carl Joshua Ncube has launched an online comedy channel – Feel Good Africa – which will see him expanding his audience base and aggregating content from comedians across Africa.What started as a Feel Good Zimbabwe stand up comedy tour last year ended up being an idea to set up an online channel to promote African comedy. The channel which was launched last year can be accessed by visiting the www.feelgoodafrica.com website.
Ncube said the Feel Good channel would not show full video clips as the videos will be more of teasers to showcase Africa’s talent.
“I’ll be collecting African comedy content from YouTube and other sites and uploading them on my site. We’ll not show full clips as the idea is to promote each other so there will be playlists featuring various comedians.
“This will hopefully expand fellow comedians’ viewership,” Ncube said.
Top comedians who are already being featured on the channel include South Africa’s Tumi Morake and Uganda’s Kansiime Anne.
He said he decided to launch the channel after noticing that there were no websites promoting African comedy.
“When I was in South Africa in September last year, a lot of my comedy friends had DVDs but there was no specific site for their comedy online for those who could not access the DVDs.
“I realised this made it difficult for people to follow our clips hence my decision to set up the online channel. Here, I select what I think people might enjoy and save them from having to follow us individually,” he said.
Ncube said he was in talks with local comedians to record their shows and also take advantage of the online platform.
“Most comedians in the country have no DVDs. I want to encourage them to record their performances and package them into DVDs so that we include their content,” he said.
The Harare-based comedian said he was developing marketing strategies to increase the viewership of African comedy as the genre continues to grow in leaps and bounds across the continent.
The online channel that is in predominantly black and with a touch of yellow has six tabs including the home page, comedy news, TV shows and a Watch tab.
The comedy news features upcoming shows comedians have around the continent and beyond while the Watch tab has a weekly compilation of African Comics.
Turning to his plans this year, Ncube said he was fundraising to go and study comedy in America.
“The course is one year and I’ll be leaving in September for New York. Hopefully, I’d have raised the $20,000 that is needed for my travel and stay there,” he said.
Online Reporter