“…The capacity to produce local content has not been developed by the media industry. Electronic media has not been accessible to private sector for more than fifteen to twenty years… so the skill set needed to produce this kind of content is missing’’.
Bernard Koku Avle, host of Citi FM’s morning show, The Citi Breakfast Show has challenged media houses to increase local content on the airwaves.
The 2017 Journalist of the year in an interview said “The predominance of foreign content on our networks is not just mindset; it is also economics.”
“Producing content is very expensive; it takes a lot of money. A lot of media houses who get licences for television do not have the resources to get their own content and the market may not be ready to experiment with new content”.
The reason most media houses prefer to air foreign content is cost of purchasing is relatively cheaper.
However, he questioned the media industry’s readiness in learning to create content which will be relevant on the airwaves.
He charged media houses with two things: to acquire the skill set needed to be able to create local content, and to build the capacity of their crew to enable them to be creative in content creation.
Bernard Avle reiterated: “Despite all the economic issues, just showing people content from Brazil or wherever as your main programming doesn’t help in the long run”.
Joe Bright Nyarko
Journalist/Communication Researcher. Environment & Sustainability Advocate. Managing Editor of aptnewsghana.com, a non-profit news portal with bias towards environment and sustainability issues, rural development policies and gender & inequality.
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