Channel O awards a two country show?

The Channel O awards held towards the end of the year were supposed to be the crowning glory for the African music industry in 2012. The glitz and glamour affair was supposed to reward the year’s top performers who, away from the red carpet and the cameras, had  worked  hard to win the hearts of music lovers from across the continent.

With the KORA awards now largely a fading phenomenon viewed mainly in West Africa, the Channel O awards are now the premier awards ceremony on the continent, bringing together the best from the African continent in an explosion of multi cultural music and high fashion. The Channel O awards however face similar challenges as their predecessor as the flag bearers of the African award shows.

These challenges have to be addressed to avoid a situation that befell KORA awards.

Although attended by such stars as Rihanna and Chris Brown the KORA Awards held last year was largely a West African affair ignored by the rest of the continent. The awards are now viewed as a preserve of just one region yet music cuts across the entire continent. Only two winners came from Southern Africa, with Namibia’s Dogg and Zahara being the only winners to come from the region.

The Channel O awards seem to be following a similarly misguided path, with the winners from the showpiece contributed largely by only two countries. The final award winners’list  is not representative of the continent.

Cashtime Fam, PSquare, Buffalo Souljah, AY, Mandoza, D-Black, Flavour, BrymO, Ice Prince DJ Cleo, Davido Zahara D’Banj and Oskido were last year’s winners and only AY, Buffalo Souljah and Oskido are not either South African or Nigerian. Souljah and Oskido although they are Zimbabweans are identified more with South Africa. The awards show’s claims that it caters for the entire continent is difficult to buy given the fact that the winners are most from the South Africa and Nigeria. The question which begs an answer is:  Are the Channel O Awards a two country affair?

The dominance that the two countries firmly stamped on the award show may be attributed to format of the awards which dictated that winners are chosen by viewers. The two countries have the highest           number of Dstv subscribers and consequently more people will vote for their own artistes. The bias towards the two countries can also be attributed to the high standard of technology in South Africa, where the highest quality music videos are made.

Added to those factors are the large populations of the two countries, especially Nigeria, which means more Dstv subscribers and consequently more voters. It thus becomes a numbers game.

Local rapper POY believes that the award show is largely motivated by monetary gain rather than the quality of the music on show, which he says is the reason for the bias towards the two countries. He believes that the problem stems from the programming from the station, which pushes Nigerian and South African music because they have the highest paying markets.

“I think that the organisers are doing what  brings money to them. If you look closely even South African music is being sidelined because now Nigerian music is very much in fashion. For me, it all comes down to the money not the quality of music or even videos,” he said.

It seems that money talks and the broadcasters are listening, and this coupled with the generally bad quality of videos that most around the continent come up with, it seems that things are heavily weighted against artistes from the other parts of the continent.

Regardless of all these factors local artiste Khuxxman believes that Zimbabwean artistes’ videos have improved and they will soon be competing with the big boys. He however conceded that most genres are yet to meet the standards so there is need to be patient.

“I think when it comes to videos production, as a country, we have a long way to go before we can say we have reached international standards. I think the problem is most pronounced in some of the country’s more traditional genres especially gospel music and sungura videos. I think the urban groovers have raised their standards. Some of their stuff is now good and can easily qualify for the regional awards and it can only be a matter of time before they win,” he said.

With subscription to Dstv increasing among medium income families from across the continent and the Channel O awards increasing in popularity, the winners will soon be coming from other countries other than Nigeria and South Africa.