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Tendai Karonga

Peter Tanyanyiwa Arts Correspondent
Zimbabwe’s Tendai Karonga has made it through to the semi-finals to possibly be the first African presenter on American television network channel, “The Learning Channel” (TLC) on DStv channel 172).

But Karonga is not assured of an easy romp home as the competition is stiff with TLC’s Next Great Presenter search having taken an unexpected twist after Discovery Network decided to expand the number of semi-finalists from 10 to 12. A statement from the network through Channels for Discovery Networks VP, Lee Hobbs says this decision was based on the high quality of entries.

Karonga will have to wait a few days until he knows the full scope of the playing field. Semi-finalists are being revealed daily on TLC Entertainment Channel every evening from 18:00 CAT.

Others to make it into the top 12 so far are Kenya’s Felix, Adenike from Nigeria, Bahumi and Lisa both from South Africa.

In his statement Lee Hobbs said that after all the Top 12 semi-finalists have been revealed,

They will go through to the next phase of the competition; a three-day boot camp during which they will attend various mentorship sessions hosted by experts in the industry. The sessions will include: performance and presenting coaching, media training and wardrobe styling to help them prepare for the next elimination round which will only leave three contestants standing. Should Karonga make it that far he will have to rely on the support of compatriots and others on the continent as the ultimate winner will be chosen through audience based popularity stakes.

There is likely to be fierce voting wars if the interest shown in the search so far are any indication. The organisers say there has been overwhelming response, with amazing levels of engagement from the first call for entries this past month.

The TLC’s Next Great Presenter is reported to have garnered over a million page views on the website so far. There were 1 500 auditions submitted from Kenya, Nigeria, Botswana, Tanzania, Uganda,

Ghana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Cape Verde, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Swaziland, Lesotho, Namibia, Angola, South Africa and Malawi.

The eventual victor will be TLCs Next Great Presenter and automatically become the official host of TLC Top 10, a brand new series coming to TLC Entertainment in December. After the gap left by the untimely demise of Top Billing presenter Simba Mhere last year, Zimbabwe will be pinning its hopes on Karonga to be its new silver screen hero.