Maybe GTV Should Have a Quiet Celebration
Ghana Broadcasting Corporation is 75 years old! Instead of ‘Hurray’!, a national vote on its flagship GTV’s current programmes and performace would surely yield resounding and unending, boos. GTV is in my view, a complete shambles. Unable to boast she is a torch and the trailblazer for high quality, seamlessly delivered programmes, education, information, great entertainment and professionally delivered news, she, like a villager, taunts and boasts that she only “STILL has nationwide coverage”. As I observed elsewhere, this is a lowly aspiration and only a glorification of size. Shame!! If TV3 or Metro TV had a 60 year start on the rest of the field with state backing, they would be “DSTV”, i.e their reach would extend beyond Ghana to significant parts of Africa and they would have at least 20 channels within their networks. GTV with state funds and infrastructure, and the peoples’ goodwill at its disposal is struggling to compete with them and apes them. GBC’s 95.7 FM frequency is not one of the 18 keyed into my radio. That’s an indictment on our “Pacesetters”.
Forgive me dear reader, but I cannot attempt a discussion of GTV and cheer about anything. It’s too damnable. GTV boasts about its new (let me use the tired phrase), ultra modern newsroom, but the two TV’s which sit proud on wooden tables each side of the newsreader do not show any images and only display GTV News’ limp green news logo with a blue star beneath it whilst the same over-stylized logo to the top right corner of the screen is yellow. There is a red, yellow and green band across the silver painted “wooden” props behind the newsreader. Ghana’s flag? If it is, where is the Black Star which distinguishes ours from Guineas or Mali? Which modern TV studio features wood? During the pointless, rather frequent breaks for long, monotonous adverts, the GTV logo is in Ghana’s proud colours. GTV what is your logo? GTV should have had a contest to choose its logo. That would have yielded something positive. A timeless logo that has character and resonates with strength.
A brief observation of some of its programmes will sound GTV’s death knell.
The Breakfast Show personifies and triumphs GTV’s dogmatic, frozen in time, mediocre, mantra; “this is the way we’ve been doing it”. This unfortunately guides its mentality and methods. Out of touch with current trends and constantly changing practices, and unwilling to embrace modernity, the gloomy Breakfast Show studio has remained unchanged for years. In its diamond anniversary year GTV has not even given its main studio a makeover. Tasteless, dead artificial flowers in three variously coloured vases sit behind the host and his guests. They’ve been there all year. Can’t GTV get Parks & Gardens, just three kilometers away, to supply them fresh cut flowers every morning? Meanwhile the gloomy, velvet burgundy chairs provide a violent contrast to the blue backdrop. Neutral colours such as beige and other earthy colours should dominate their furniture and setting. The rather glossy, old fashioned, cherry coloured dark centre table reflects light and is often adorned with water bottles, fruit drinks, medical prescriptions etc; products of their sponsors. Each host and guest usually has three products from which to choose. It’s all very messy, unprofessional and cheap. Surely, some kind, proven, interior decorators and furniture manufacturers will be glad to voluntarily assist GTV overcome this tardiness and come up with something more cheerful, tasteful and modern for the Breakfast Show set. When you tell GBC staff that the display of these products is unacceptable, the usual, helpless answer is that the sponsors want it! GTV and not its sponsors should set the rules! These products are advertised several times during the programme. Do they have to be thrust further into our noses? Gifty Anti and her co-host who open the show do not provide us with the date, time and a few relevant interesting facts/tips, but ramble on quite interminably about their looks, hair, clothes and how they spent their weekend, amid giggling. We are not interested in your personal lives. At 6.30am if I have to catch some TV it must be worth it. The programme itself is fragmented. Splintered by three, often four, full length adverts played before each segment, the show never reaches a crescendo. Thus the main interview, the general news, business news and sports news are disjointed. This is prime time and GTV Breakfast Show must insist that its sponsors produce shortened adverts, for this purpose.
Two grievous presenters’ sins; one, the habit of Nii Odartey Lamptey and Gifty Anti who never seem to know their main guests names and almost always refer to a piece of paper when introducing them. It shows a lack of preparation for the programme and is insulting to their guests. They know beforehand who is coming to the show. They must learn by rote, their guests’ names, faces and CV’s before the show starts. Nii Odartey looks tired, pale and disinterested in what he’s doing, both on the Breakfast Show and on the News. Maybe he needs new challenges, new frontiers. The second deadly sin, committed regularly, and a practice connived in and common to other TV and radio stations, guilty among which are TV3 and the increasingly depressing Joy FM, is for presenters in narcissistic self adulation to unceasingly refer to their clothes, hair, etc. praise each other, tell us who made their clothes and where we can find them etc. It’s crass. Let’s stop this practice. Can’t clothes sponsorship, if it is such a big deal, be supplied on the credits at the end of the programme? One cannot do a full dissertation of the Breakfast Show here. It needs too much chopping up.
Let me devote some time to GTV’s Evening News. Punctuated regularly by adverts every few minutes, it is a painful hour to endure. But must it last an hour? Each short segment is preceded by and capped with at least three adverts. The news hour has become an Advertising Cycle. The sports segment (not sedjment) has two sponsors; Tigo and Stanbic Bank jostling for attention on the half green-half blue plywood backdrop. The double ticker tape information bars that run at the bottom of the screen either gallop at a frenzied pace leaving you unable to read them or are too slow. Why two bars? A lot of the images on “news” regarding feeder roads, sanitation issues, inauguration of toilets and hand dug wells are often dull and blurred and seem to be played from mobile phone cameras. It’s unacceptable.
It would be unfair for me to continue this harangue without suggesting some remedies. GTV must first shed its dowdy image. ‘State broadcaster’ must not mean dull and insipid. The BBC has energy. It must engage good, experienced, balanced, restrained fashion houses such as Dan Morton and Joyce Ababio to give its presenters tips on the do’s and dont’s of dressing, how to look sharp and professional on TV, without looking tarty. TV presenters cannot wear what they like. They cannot wear lime green, yellow shirts or beige suits when presenting the business news. They cannot wear all sorts of check shirts. They cannot be fat and portly. Worldwide, TV presenters are trim. We cannot be different. If they are fat they don’t look efficient. If they become fat they have no place on TV. They must be stylish but restrained. They must go through lessons in comportment and poise etc. Last Saturday 24th July, there was an excitable female presenter on the Breakfast Show. She yelled too much in trying to interview a gospel musician. TV presenters cannot foist their religious views on us and insist that we pray and accept their beliefs, especially during the Breakfast Show, the news and other secular programmes. This Pharisee-like practice is not limited to GTV. TV3 is also guilty of this. The fonts which introduce some of its programmes are inappropriate, too italicized and sometimes barely legible. On national holidays, GTV insists on showing barely audible choirs singing “patriotic songs”. It should do a survey to see if anyone hears what is sung or enjoys them. Sports Highlights has remained on our screens only through the personal, untiring commitment of “Wunderbar” Kwabena Yeboah. When he is absent, the show dips further. Thanks Kwabena. Apart from the European football highlights towards the end of the programmers, the show is like a palaentology lesson. Further, the montage which opens the programme dates back to his namesake Tony Yeboah’s great days twenty years ago! Can’t GTV, like Supersport, change this regularly? With the exploits of our football teams and recent phenomenal performances and memorable images from athletics, boxing and other sports from all over the globe, can’t we forget the images of Senegal and frequently change these montages? The chap who handles Sports Beat dresses quite appropriately but some of his guests hardly do. Can’t GTV’s sponsors clothe them in polo shirts or other sporty gear or failing that, recommend/insist on what they ought to wear? During the World Cup, Fiifi Banson’s programme which featured Karl Tufuor as guest was quite informative. They both know their stuff. The studio however was a bit of a mess. The sponsor’s name and products were inscribed everywhere and littered the studio. The setting was dark, dull and uninspiring. Host and guest could have co-ordinated their clothes better. The setting looked hastily constructed and for a programme that ran for a month; the most exciting, most eagerly awaited, most watched and the most important sporting event in four years. GTV and its sponsors failed to make it memorable. GTV take pride in what you churn out.
GTV has to re-examine at all its programmes and run through them with a fine comb. Things have changed; GTV must change. It must hire seasoned furniture professionals and proven interior decorators to offer them suggestions on how to ensure that their studios are modern, uncluttered and tastefully appointed without being chintzy. Constance Swaniker will be willing to help. Too much is glossed over on GTV. GTV must begin to pay close attention to all sorts of detail. Often times during the news, a recording is shown, but it is still tagged “Live”. The moment the pre-recorded coverage starts, the “live” tag should disappear. This is important! GTV must begin to be finicky. It must demand the best from its presenters and staff. If it has to get someone; individual or body corporate, from outside its set up to begin this process, it must. Only then can its rejuvenation begin. Its Castle correspondent does not sound good. His script must be read by someone else. GTV should have reached the stage where it can reject cheap, poorly assembled music videos, adverts and soap operas as being unfit for our screens. This would have raised the bar. As it is, crude adverts and shoddy music videos dominate. “Cantata” in its current incarnation is nothing but a fooling session. It is not comedy.
I’m currently transfixed by GTV. But it is for the wrong reasons. When the English premiership starts 14th August, I’ll “try and pay” DSTV’s steep monthly subscription and end my “Ghana TV” misery. Ironically if I want to watch Accra Hearts of Oak, to DSTV I must turn. Alas, GTV does not show our football league…
Johnny Blukoo-Allotey
Accra, Ghana.