M-NET’s refusal to renew the contract of Blakofe as the Ghana correspondent for ‘Studio 53’ must have come as very good news for a lot of other presenters -- that is if the number and calibre of radio and TV personalities who turned up for auditions for a replacement is anything to go by. Christ Attoh (host of ‘Rythmz’ on TV3), Jon Germain (of Metro TV’s ‘Allo tiGo’), Earl Ankrah (‘EA Live’ on GTV), Black Boy (formerly of TV3’s 4Sight TV), Anita Erskine (TV 3 ‘Mentor’) and a several others auditioned for the well-publicized job.

At the end of the day, it seems Earl, Anita and Chris impressed the judges the most and one of them will most likely get the job. Whoever is picked will be the Ghana correspondent for ‘Studio 53’, the popular pan-African magazine programme which reports on all lifestyle issues on the continent. The job was previously held by Blakofe, until she recently fell out with M-NET, apparently over an interview with JIVE in which she criticised government’s spending on the Ghana@50 celebrations.

Liza De Villiers, who flew in from South Africa to lead the audition panel told JIVE that most of the people who turned up “had raw talent”. But the panel was looking for more than that. “Some of them lack the experience we need,” she said. “We were looking for someone who has a strong personality. The person must also be able to style themselves so they have their own identity. ”

Whoever is selected as the Ghana correspondent will be trained to be able to report on lifestyle issues in the country. JIVE has learnt that M-NET has already selected Eagle Productions to handle all the production logistics for ‘Studio 53’ content from Ghana.