ZBC and Herald nonsense about programming

Beginning this April, Zimbabweans living abroad will have access to ZBC-TV and radio programmes live on the internet. That is if you are gullible enough to believe some of the things covered in the Herald. Apparently, Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings has signed an agreement with Jump TV International, a Dubai-based company, which will have exclusive licence to commercially distribute and rebroadcast ZBC-TV programmes worldwide via Internet TV and Closed Network Internet Protocol TV. The programming will be accessible via the ZBC-TV website or Jump TV’s website.

According to Henry Muradzikwa, the ZBH Chief Executive, the benefits to ZBC-TV and Zimbabwe are as follows:

· ZBC-TV will receive a share of the revenue generated by Jump TV through subscriptions and advertising.
· This is an opportunity to speak directly to those who are receiving distorted information and a time to correct the misrepresentation of issues in Zimbabwe.
· Zimbabweans living abroad will now be able to see on their own, through ‘visual technology’ – whatever that means, the truth about Zimbabwe.
· Revenue generated will provide ZBC-TV with much-needed foreign currency to purchase equipment such as tapes and cameras that the broadcasting requires.

Now dig this: This agreement is of noble intentions but right now it does not make any sense. One gets the feeling that this Henry Muradzikwa fellow has no idea what he is talking about except for what he got from the marketing brochure. I suspect he was just excited that some people from Dubai were interested in doing business with ZBC. Who really are these people anyway? I think I will check out their website once I get the time.

Like I said before, there is nothing wrong with the idea in principle. It would probably work in economies more advanced than ours. Even is such economies, broadband TV is only just starting to take off. By the way, when did ZBC put in place the technology required to supply broadband content on its websites? How many Zimbabweans have broadband connection and, perhaps even more importantly, how many Zimbabweans out there are interested in streaming programming from ZBC-TV onto their machine? How many programmes are owned by ZBC and what about the quality? Which advertisers are they targeting? In a nutshell, there really is no viable market available for ZBC to start dreaming big.

This Henry Muradzikwa guy needs a talking to. How do people like him end up getting these important jobs anyway? ZBC would be better advised to work on improving the quality of programming for now. It’s just common sense since most of what they produce locally is crap.