adminTafadzwa Zimoyo
Hope you enjoyed your Easter holidays.
Easter is one of the biggest holidays stretching for a good four days, and being that special, everyone deserves all the special treatment they can afford.We hope you dedicated some time to reflect on its importance and also made time to attend mass.
Speaking about Mass, ZTV tried to keep audiences keyed-up to the theme of Easter, although some of the programmes they screened were ‘obsolete’, if the word is not too harsh.
It has become a norm for ZTV to re-screen the same old productions during Easter and viewers have come to a point where they can ‘watch’ the programmes with closed eyes and keep a running commentary of what is unfolding on the screen.
Television viewing should not become too predictable but always jolt the viewers with new and exciting things. With Easter certainly coming every year, ZTV should plan ahead for the big holiday during which most people will spend time at home. We need new content, please.
ZTV should take a leaf from other broadcasters who go out there into the people, see how they spending their holiday, capture some voices and then flight these.
Another thing is that there seems to be no or little incentives for independent producers to come up with productions covering Easter and then take them to the national broadcaster.
As usual the gripe is all about lack of resources, but I beg to differ and say that the deficiency is in the imagination department more than the wallet.
Production is becoming cheaper as technology advances each day.
Easter is a time of going out into the churches, bring out the real worship and services which are fast-becoming a thing of the past.
From experience, I have come to realise that there are a lot talents within the various churches we have in Zimbabwe, and ZTV should cultivate the habit of going out into these churches and capture their productions, be they plays on the crucifixion and eventual resurrection of Jesus Christ; musical performances inspired by Easter and such-like artistic creations. In addition every church worth the name seems to have its own media department anyway and I am sure that many of them would be happy to give free content to ZTV because they would have budgeted for the cost as part of their normal operations. In return they get some mileage and exposure.
That way there is a win-win situation.
We cannot go away without talking about the new ZTV Sunday Edition set that has caused a stir on social media with many people laughing at the table, chairs and back-drop and the shared mic sticking out like a sore thumb.
Please ZTV producers, be serious. This is going beyond a joke. Did someone realise that there was a programme to screen five minutes before time and just hurriedly push together the nearest items? Why did the presenters agree to the ridicule that would obviously rain down on them?
On another note, it is encouraging to note that the world of TV is evolving and new and novel trends aimed at giving viewers quality for their money are coming up.
One of such noteworthy developments is the introduction of Zee World by DStv, whereby viewers can now enjoy a whole lot of Bollywood movies, that is you are that incurable romantic.
These will be the romantic movies that made helped in making the industry popular the world over and through this facility, viewers can now have some of the latest movies from that side of the world.
By doing this, DStv have also set a pace which local film producers should follow by learning something from their Bollywood counterparts.
This concept is similar to that introduced by Telemundo, the renowned American-Spanish language broadcast television network which broadcasts programmes which target certain groups of Hispanic and Latin American extraction scattered all over the world.
And like ZeeWorld, Telemundo focuses on romantic viewer-ship and it is hoped that Zee World will be popular among viewers, because who doesn’t love to be loved, after all!.
It is also a good thing for people of Indian extraction who are based in Zimbabwe because, by watching these movies, they are brought closer to home, far away from home.
Again to MultiChoice, thank you for continuing giving more channels, but ain’t we tired on some of them as it is much of repetition rather than the name itself.
Still on that, BET launches on DSTV channel 129.
It is a family entertainment channel that brings you international trends and talent, celebrating Africa’s talent and creativity through locally produced and international programming from a variety of genres.
But the grumbles against MultiChoice continue with many people threatening not to renew their subscriptions as the recent hike bites. Feedback from readers of the column continues to be highly negative and we are sure that if MultiChoice were to be open they would admit that numbers are falling and falling fast.
Come to think of it, they already did when they embarked on the exercise to cut off all those using South African service.
Don’t touch that button.
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