Hifa eager to partner ZBC-TV

screen but I believe its good to give readers a chance to air their views.
Last week, I started a debate on how organisers of the Harare International Festival of the Arts can engage the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation.
I even spoke to Manuel Bagorro, who is the artistic director and founder of Hifa, and he indicated that a partnership between ZBC-TV and Hifa was possible.
I remember challenging Sivukile Simango to put things into perspective regarding the screening of Hifa on ZBC-TV/News.
Simango did not bother to do that. However, I managed to get a response from Tafadzwa Simba, the head of media liaison of Hifa, and below is his response:
Dear Jonathan
Thank you for starting this extremely relevant public discussion on the role of public broadcasters such as ZBC and national events such as Hifa within the broader picture of service the public.
For the record, Hifa has annually, variously and consistently engaged ZBC on means by which it can cover the festival.
Personnel from ZBC’s news, radio and TV production sections are gladly accredited by Hifa every year and relations between Hifa and ZBC have remained cordial.
I cannot speak for ZBC but I am sure that they are in the process of making sure all national events are covered.
Of course, the nation understands the challenges the public broadcaster has been experiencing and Hifa fully realises and understands that ZBC for the last couple of years has been undergoing transformative processes such as those related to digitisation, re-introduction of a second channel as well as revamping of programming and that these areas may have received priority attention.
To that extent Hifa is fully supportive and understand the public broadcaster.
Hifa is, however, confident that once ZBC is ready and through continued dialogue, will be able to take advantage of the copious programming and news material ready for its use at Hifa as we have always been ready and willing to facilitate this.
As a non-profit charitable trust, Hifa is not able to dispense of finances for specific advertising to the levels consistent with television advertising but Hifa does have corporate partners which ZBC can court and from which the public broadcaster can receive advertising income.
This is exactly the model that print media houses (such as Zimpapers, which incidentally reported a profit in the past financial year) have successfully used.
Consistent with its non-profit charitable Trust status, Hifa is not a money-spinning enterprise but survives on partnerships and its perceived opulence is derived therefrom – a simple matter of well-structured, fully audited and mutually beneficial arrangements with its partners.
Hifa is more than willing to facilitate linkages between those that do have advertising finances with those that need advertising revenue using this partnership matrix.
Hifa is sure that ZBC is also keen on fulfilling its duty as a public broadcaster in terms of informing its stakeholders on national events regardless of advertising potential.
Hifa is more than willing and has offered to work with any public media house to assist in crafting means by which such public media organisations can get revenue.
Needless to say, it is this sort of sustainable revenue that can then allow a public media organisation to self-finance and carry out its mandate of provision of Pro Deo news information to the public.
So Hifa is more than glad and willing to do a service for the public in that regard.
The bottom line is that we all must understand the burdens of a public broadcaster and Hifa is sure that ZBC has an action plan which involves taking care of certain operational and technical priority areas first.
Hifa is also sure that once ZBC is ready, it will be able to take full advantage of the festival and its other corporate partners for its own benefit and for the benefit of its viewers and listeners.
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