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I hope I find you well. What a hectic weekend and yet another opportunity for ZTV to get entertaining content. What if we could get to watch footage from the Zimpraise festival, the Konshens show and the Carnival over the next couple of weeks and beyond? Would that not be superb? Imagine if the organisers and the national broadcaster really sat down and made a plan to give maximum mileage to those events. They could go regional and beyond, especially the Carnival. Of course that would entail everyone involved upping their game to spectacular heights and maybe that is the problem.

I am not pointing at anyone, but it will take minds that think outside the box and people who are not afraid of admitting that maybe their innovative capacity is limited instead of always falling on the same excuse of funding. Do it well or do not do it at all, I submit before I rest my case.

Last week, I attended the MultiChoice Zimbabwe – Media Review session, which was centred on opportunities to evaluate the relationship between media and MultiChoice. The experience has certainly made me think deeply about this column. One of the important things I learnt was the power wielded by media practitioners in shaping opinions.

First and foremost, media has power to control the mind of the people and think for them, so I promise to keep my opinion as fair as possible bearing in mind that not everyone shares my viewing platform of the world. I also realise the need to cater for all tastes and not only concentrate on favourite programmes but take time to check what is trendy, be it sport or business so that they report the factual and current.

I later took an informal loosely structured survey to find out the most popular programmes and how they have been reported on. (Please bear with me this is my survey). What came out is that a third of women who are already Africa Magic afficionados are falling for TeleMundo and Zee World because of societal and love issues while most men are into Supersport and Discovery Channels and current affairs outlets like the news channels.

For the youth, it is all about music and M-Net movies with the latest channels opened always bound to get the most votes. All these seem to be within the boundaries of expected outcomes.

The surprise was on Zambezi Magic. I have been waxing lyrical on the channel as I thought the regional identity would do the trick, but no. Viewers I communicated with said that watching repeats of South African soapies is not how they choose to spend their TV time. Especially with the persistent power cuts already limiting the watching time anyway.

Perhaps as they get new and more current content like our own musical videos Top 10 will be aired there hosted Zororo Makamba the regional buy-in will occur.

A question came up in the survey: How does DStv select programmes for viewers on different bouquets? I did not even bother to ask Multi Choice about this one as I think it is very straightforward; the more desirable the content, the more expensive the bouquet. In other words I think they charge more for what people want most. That sounds like a sound business model to me.

Remember if you want to enjoy the show you have to pay.

People also said that they are not convinced by the description of the Discovery channels as Pan-African versions of the American documentary channels offering non-fiction entertainment in the areas of history, nature, science and technology, world class culture and human adventure. To be honest there seems to be little African content and the little that is there seems to be portrayed through American eyes.

But to be fair a good number of the programmes are neutral and relevant to the world at large so if that is your cup of tea, go on and indulge yourself. Last Friday night, Zimbabwe hosted its inaugural Zim Television and Film Awards honouring those who have made an impact in the industry. There were some ups and downs at the show, according to fans who attended but since its a first, I would say let’s just salute the efforts being made.

I was just wondering on their criteria and from what period. I rest my case again on that one. Back to DStv, so the BET Hip-hop awards came and passed, and as usual, full of controversy just like ours. I will not dwell much on them but give thumbs up for the stage set-up and management as well as great performances.