STARTING this evening Zimbabweans with free to air decoders will be getting access to the country’s first independent television station – 1st TV, which is another wake-up call to the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC).
Southern Eye Editorial
The station is a brainchild of exiled Zimbabwean journalists who are tapping into the void left by the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), which had its signals encrypted by that country’s signal carrier Sentech early this month.
Over three million Zimbabweans, fed up with poor programming on ZBC, had resorted to watching SABC channels on Wiztech, Phillibao, Fortec Star and Vivid decoders.
The massive number of households that had resorted to foreign television stations that they accessed through pirated signals was an emphatic statement that Zimbabweans had lost faith in ZBC’s television and radio stations.
Despite the unequivocal vote of no confidence on the so-called State broadcaster that has operated more like a Zanu PF private institution, which has for a long time been ignored by certain authorities in the inclusive government.
The Zanu PF side of the government has fought hard to entrench the ZBC monopoly to an extent of even seeking to defy technological advances through Stone Age media regulations.
However, Zimbabweans other than resorting to the free-to-air decoders have also been resisting paying ZBC licences. Others have even gone to court challenging the rationale of forcing them to pay for a product that they find repulsive.
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It is in that light that we welcome the arrival of 1st TV, which we hope will live up to expectations.
The station’s sponsors have promised that 1st TV will provide impartial and factual news to the people of Zimbabwe as well as broadcasting popular films, soap operas and comedies.
There is no doubt that Zimbabweans have been deprived of all the things which other citizens in some countries take for granted, for too long. Zimbabwe is probably the only country in Southern Africa that does not have private radio and televisions stations.
The coming in of 1st TV is a timely lesson for the Zanu PF mandarins that in this era of technology, if you do not adapt you die.
