ZIMBABWE-MEDIA: No Joy Yet From Joy TV

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Lewis Machipisa

HARARE, Aug 5 1997 (IPS) - It has been two weeks since JOY TV made its debut by buying a huge slot of air time on the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation’s (ZBC) second channel, but some viewers are yet to be delighted by the new station.

Not that they view JOY TV, run by a consortium of seven Zimbabweans as bad, but they are yet to see a major difference from the bland programmes offered by the state-run ZBC.

“Although from now on ZTV (channel) 1 will have to cope with stiff competition from JOY TV, it will take a long time before the new station can pose a serious threat,” wrote film-maker and critic Olley Maruma in a local weekly.

But Maruma conceded that JOY TV’s arrival has had some real benefits in Zimbabwe which for years has known only one broadcaster.

“Interestingly, since the arrival of JOY TV, ZBC’s overall line up, especially that of its imported programmes, has suddenly improved,” observed Maruma.

“Although ZBC’s rather staid censors spoil our viewing and concentration by bliping out large chucks of dialogue, presumably to eliminate four letter words, it is now showing us more recent films and their quality has improved,” added Maruma.

But a local journalist, who declined to be named, said he is yet “to experience joy from JOY TV”.

“While those guys (JOY TV) provide an alternative for the viewer, they are not offering anything better than ZBC and that’s very unfortunate for a station that has the potential of running a fully-fledged station if the airwaves are liberalised,” said the journalist.

“The programmes they offer are not so much people oriented. Most of them are foreign programmes. There is very little local input and little relationship with reality. Viewers expected a serious challenge to the ZBC and it seems at the moment that ZBC is not even shaken,” he added.

“Instead of concentrating on outside programmes they should produce programmes for the local market. ZBC is not doing that and JOY should fulfill the peoples’ needs.”

JOY TV started beaming into Harare and its surrounding areas on Jul. 22. It does not have its own station and buys airtime from ZBC.

One notable difference though between ZBC and JOY TV is, while not taking a ‘sex sells approach’, JOY TV appears somewhat more liberal.

“JOY TV has got a particular viewer in mind,” said Bill Saidi an editorial consultant with a local magazine. “Culturally the programmes are sort of targetted at Whites, except for a few.”

But, “it’s a change and I like watching it. It’s got more comedy than ZBC and this is very good. It’s a refreshing change from the dreary programmes that we see on ZTV 1,” Saidi told IPS.

Saidi, who has worked for several Zimbabwean newspapers, also believes that ZTV goes to far with its censorship, and he sees no need to cut out four-letter words. “It’s okay to have words like that. I don’t know why people think that Zimbabwe is so straight. Really there are only a few people who think that if you say a four-letter word, it’s offensive.”

“Some of it is hypocritical. That’s what it is, because I don’t think our society in general is that conservative,” Saidi continued, adding that with the advent of the internet, Zimbabweans “better wake up to reality.

“We have joined the information highway, we have joined the global village and why do we keep pretending that we are different. We are not different,” he said.

“If you look at some of the events that have happened in recent years there are many people who have been charged for crimes which would never have been imagined a long time ago. What does this mean? It means that Zimbabwe has entered the 20th century and there is no going back.

” We can pretend as much as we like that we are decent, that we are conservative, but it’s stupid because we are not. If you look at what’s happening on the streets of Harare it’s not conservative,” Saidi said. “We are talking about going back to the 1870s. (Yet,) We are forging ahead with the rest of the world, so it’s high time we stopped pretending.”

But Peter Matayaunga sees it differently.

“The people of Zimbabwe are very conservative when it comes to issues that are immoral and because they are generally Christians they will not tolerate that(profanity on the screen),” said Matayaunga.

“Most families in Zimbabwe can only afford one TV set for the whole family and therefore we expect to see a film that’s moral. If films come in raw, it is the responsibility of JOY TV as a station to cut out some of these things, because the moment you offend you lose credibility and lose viewership,” he argued.

Both Saidi and Maruma said that JOY TV’s only blemish is that it does not beam its own local news bulletin and relies on ZBC TV 1 news.

“I pray that JOY TV will have its own news and not a rehash of ZBC news. ZBC news is aimed at pleasing the government,” Saidi said.

Maruma agreed. “At the moment it is bad enough that the station does not have its own locally-produced news bulletin. A news bulletin is after all the defining flagship of any television station.”

However at the moment, JOY TV is hampered by the fact that the airwaves are still to be opened to private players and the heavy hand of the state still determines what is “good news and what’s not”.

According to a ZBC employee, JOY TV does not want to beam its own news at the moment for fear of “rocking the boat and risk being thrown overboard by ZBC.”

“These guys have a hidden agenda and are playing their cards close to their chest until the airwaves are completely liberalised,” he told IPS.

Government has said the airwaves will be liberalised before the end of the year and already a number of players have shown readiness to set up broadcasting stations in this Southern African nation.