I AM saying happy Christmas to all of you my ardent readers as we slowly close the doors of 2016 and open the promising gates of 2017 in the entertainment television industry!
From the bottom of my heart, I would like to thank all of you my ardent readers especially those who have contributed positively to the column.
You have made me your friend and given me that incredible strength to carry on with this thankless work.
Firstly, let me thank MultiChoice for entertaining viewers throughout the year and for the Christmas-tailored programmes.
Mwiika Malindima, MultiChoice public relations manager is grateful to this platform.
He however has a special Christmas message for his subscribers on all DStv bouquets, that for the loyalty shown in the past year, MultiChoice is giving back more exciting and new content as a way of saying ‘Thank you”
He says the new Explora 2 is also on a Christmas promotion of only K1, 100 which is another way of saying “we value you”.
He says: “We wish our viewers happy Christmas today and let them know that we love them that we are working very hard to give them even better content.  I can proudly say our subscribers are in for a very exciting 2017.”
One of the landmarks that MultiChoice has recorded through the promotion of local content is the Zambezi Magic platform.
Mwiika is promising more interesting Zambian content on this platform which is fast becoming one of Zambian viewers’ favourite channels.
Today is a special day to make different decisions and reflect on our pasts and perhaps think of the future.
This drives me to our local television industry that had its flaws and highs.
I would like to point out one specific flaw that I have for two weeks observed at the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC).
It has to do with sound especially during the main news bulletin when there are usually some cracks and breaks in sound transmission.
On Monday for instance, I was watching the main news cast by Chilufya Mwelwa who also looked different because of her unusual hairstyle, when suddenly the sound went mute for some seconds.
At times I thought is was my television set but having multiple channels on my decoder proved otherwise because it has always been ZNBC with that bad cracked sound.
The sound engineers may know what I am talking about though I may not be sure whether it is lack of resources that has made this problem a persistent one for some weeks now or mere negligence.
Those who do not have other channels to compare with might even have gotten used to the distortion in the sound output because it is somewhat ‘manageable’.
We hope that as ZNBC airs its Christmas special programmes, the sound would have been worked on.
We move to the QTV which is relatively new in the Zambian television industry. This platform has come to applaud one prolific news caster by the name of Zingindaba, Johna Vuyoya.
This young man has a notable talent that simply makes him execute his duty smoothly like hot knife cutting through butter.
Meeting this young man in a number of corporate events did not surprise me because his immense talent can’t just go unnoticed.
This is why I would really want to advise this young man who is not even 20-years of age yet to continue building on his potential and not fall prey to silly television ego that I have witnessed in some broadcasters.
If he can continue working hard and seeking professional counsel from the likes of Maureen Nkandu and Namakau Kaphia, I can see the young man going further than just being a local television presenter.
In the same vein, it is interesting to see television stations like Prime TV always upping their game in this competitive local television industry.
It is the desire of this platform to see good competition among the local channels especially with the migration to digital television process.
There are only few days before kissing goodbye to 2017 and lets pray that God sees us through this festive period with divine love and protection.
It will be a great blessing to record an incident-free festive season by simply sitting with family at home enjoying what both the pay and local television stations will be offering in terms of entertainment.
For comments, festive greetings and contributions email samphiri77@gmail.com or text /call 0974372181