Lessons from AMVCA
Published On March 15, 2014 » 3623 Views» By Administrator Times » Columns, Entertainment
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TV - XavierIN a week dominated by the Air Malaysia Flight MH370 which disappeared last Saturday, the silence on the topic from our television channels is palpable.
After watching the Africa Magic Viewers Choice (AMVC) awards last Saturday, it dawned on me how much goes into televising a live event of that magnitude.
Though my friend Nancy Handabile did not win on that particular night, there are so many positives that can be drawn from the fact that Love Games still walked away with one accolade in form of Fred Phiri who got recognition for producing the series.
It’s not my place to go into the nitty gritty of how Nancy could have possibly been disadvantaged by the number of people who were available to vote for her Nigerian competitors, but the heavy presence of Nigeria among the nominees and the eventual winners was noteworthy.
In the end, I would not be too far off-the-mark to suggest the AMVC might as well be rechristined to Nigerian movie awards.
Make no mistake, the Nigerian movie industry has grown from strength to strength and you cannot fault them for making the nominees’ list look almost all-Nigeria.
They more than deserve their place in the limelight for the amount of work that has gone in there.
My point here is that the awards presentation itself was almost flawless, save for a few boobs that are expected when mortal beings are involved.
As a kin follower of comedy, I enjoyed myself watching the Nigerian trio of Tchidi Ikere, Osita Iheme and John Okafor who were vying for the same award lighting up the podium when Osita got the best AMVC for best actor comedy.
The main lesson to learn from the awards presentation night, however, is the almost flawless show of quality with the well-coordinated presentation that showed a gulf of class between what I saw on Saturday and the recently held Zambia Music Awards on ZNBC a few weeks ago.
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There is need for more sports content on local television. I have belaboured this point before, to me, it is an injustice that Nkana and Zesco United, who have so far cut above their weights in the continental games but none of their impressive starts to big leagues has been beamed live.
The time-beaten argument on why Zambian stadiums have more empty seats than the filled one still lingers on but television and media in general have their work cut out on the need to attract spectators back to the sports arenas.
Television rights have become one of the most prized assets in the industry and companies in the developed world have exploited the business to the fullest.
I know for a fact the Sport Five own the television right for the CAF Champions League but certainly if a local television station wanted to broadcast a Zesco or Nkana match, a deal of some sort can be cut to leave both sides happy.
Apart from the soccer content that obviously people are more interested in, there is currently a Hockey championship going on at the Olympic Youth Development Centre (OYDC) which our local stations have conspicuously blacked out.
Understandbly, hockey is relatively unheralded on the local sports scene but showing matches live or even recorded can begin to cultivate interest among youths who could just find themselves another source of employment away from the white collar business.
Besides there is already the Sumsung Challenge running at OYDC across various disciplines and yearning for tapping into as a market.
Most leagues in Europe are getting into the home stretch now with fixtures becoming even more interesting and it would not hurt to have the excitement brought to our living rooms direct by ZNBC, Muvi TV and other local channels.
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Cut-aways are meant to provide the perspective of a function but it seems they are now being used wrongly in the name of capturing a different mood away from the usual posing.
I have a case in point where news items from seemingly serious assigments get to capture a span of journalists cracking jokes and people in the living rooms are wondering what business the scribes have laughing when someone is reading a speech that they are supposed to be listening to attentively.
It can fully be understood that the men and women behind the cameras are always looking at the raw picture devoid of a pose but it sometimes distorts the whole piece.
It baffles me to watch Vice-President Guy Scott reading an International Women’s Day or Youth Day speech in a news clip and then next comes a cut-away showing people dancing.
The immediate connection that comes to mind is that people were dancing, while Dr Scott was reading his speech.
It would be better if the cut-away for speech a related news item help to illustrate what they are talking about. For example if the Lusaka Mayor Daniel Chisenga is talking about council workers cleaning the Civic Centre, I would accept a cut-away showing a pile of dirty or people cleaning it.
I keep marvelling at the way Paul Shalala packages his features with a kind of flow that will keep you glued much the same way Bangwe Navile carries you on his broad shoulders throughout his package.
We need the typical packages of identifying the problem and bringing out the interventions the authorities are putting in and then the journalist’s voice in the stand up suggesting another measure of how best a situation can be approached.
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From the mailbag, I pulled out a viewer’s response to last Sunday’s comprehensive feedback from Masuzyo Ndhlovu.
Hi Xavier,
Please allow me to send a thank you note to ZNBC corporate affairs manager Masuzyo Ndhlovu for replying to my concerns. He is a good communicator.
I have another concern though; I remember that ZNBC had a ceremonial hand over of the generator set. How come power outages are still being experienced?
I believe switching from the usual power to the gen-set cannot take any longer than three seconds. Thank you.
For more comments manchishi@gmail.com

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