As part of their sixth anniversary, Channel R 92.7 FM, a gospel radio station in Accra has started a talent competition to give ten potential musicians the chance to have their albums recorded free of charge.

According to DJ Abio, the Public Relations officer of the station, this programme which is in collaboration with Elsahdai Recording Studios, started in the first week of November and will continue till the end of the year.

He said objective of this programme is to discover and bring to the limelight potential musicians whose talents have not been exploited due to bad circumstances like financial constraints and lack of exposure. He said the offer is open to all and sundry who believe they have the talent to sing.

People who register will be provided with instrumentation created by the radio station and requested to write songs that accurately fit the instrumentation. They will then submit their finished works to the station to be played on air every Saturday and Monday at 4 and 2 pm respectively.

Listeners will then be expected to call in to vote for the best pieces of music after which a technical committee made up of Studio Engineers from Elshadia and music analysts from Channel R will analyze and finally select the best ten music out of the ones voted for by the listeners.

Their criteria for the selection of the best ten are based on quality of voice, style of singing and lyrical content. The best ten selected artistes are then offered the chance to have an album each consisting a maximum of ten songs recorded for them free of charge.

Abio said this programme is a follow up to a talent hunt competition organized by Faisal Helwani of Bibini Music Production about four months ago in which 1500 people registered but only 30 were successful with a recording of only one song for each of them.

He said that they already have five producers standing by to produce the works of the first five winners of the competition.

So far, 50 people have registered. More registration are expected since the offer is still open.