When the National Broadcasting Board issued licenses of radio and television stations, local musicians where robbed and silenced. It was the biggest suppression of the music industry, worse than the New Liquor Regulations. As it stands most if not all radio stations in Botswana are running on 10-year licenses with 30% local quota recommended which they are failing dismally to meet.
We have a big problem in our hands because these licenses mean for every hour only 3 local songs should play and 72 songs should play per day and 26280 local songs should play in a year, against 87600 songs that play annually in each radio station. This means for every 10 songs 3 must be local, meaning out of the three songs allocated local songs that play twice a day/per show disadvantage so many other songs or to be specific musicians. One might ask how I arrived at these figures? On average a song is 4 and half minutes and in an hour excluding the DJ talking and adverts you can only have 10 songs playing per an hour at most or less in a worst case scenario like RB1 where there are so many talk shows like Moremogolo, Maokaneng and Masa-a-sele because most time is taken up by deliberations of studio guests and callers.
With C.O.S.B.O.T.S. in sight and the current environment is going to automatically make C.O.S.B.O.T.S. one Botswana’s many import agencies as it will be collecting royalties from all these radio and television stations and distributing 80% to 90% of them to foreign music composers.
This is a situation we must move swiftly and avert, as it will not help in the growth of our GDP and reduction of Botswana’s current import bill. It will mean all the millions Botswana Government invested in C.O.S.B.O.T.S. will be for the benefit of foreign music composers.
Radio Programs such as Rraago Malaakatse which plays too much Mzimbabwe (Msakaso), Gumba Fire on Gabzfm, International Top 20 and others similar in nature need to be stopped or revised, as they do nothing to grow the local music industry but encourage the growth of foreign composers who have nothing to offer the local industry.
The National Broadcasting Board MUST increase the local airplay quota to 70% and must not be apologetic for this move. There are two lame excuses by local radio stations that if they were to increase local content they will lose listeners ad advertisers because firstly Batswana don’t like local music and secondly Botswana Music is low quality. If local content was to increase to 70% the record sales will shoot up because most of the music on radio and television will be local.
Local artist bookings for music concerts will increase this will mean more money for B.U.R.S. and more employment created locally.
These arguments about local music lacking quality come from lack of patriotism and selfishness and people who look at their stomachs alone. Firstly no radio station in Botswana has conducted a research of what type of music Batswana want to hear and how they want that particular music produced over the past two years. Secondly I don’t know of any single Radio Station Manager in Botswana who is a music producer all of them are former club DJs, the other a model. A DJ normally plays a finished product he does not know anything about mixing, mastering and engineering of a song while a model will be as dark as 10 midnights combined when it comes to music production. I am not being sarcastic but frank and straight and forward; and dealing with facts only. Radio station managers must leave the debate of the quality of local music to consumers and the audience.
In Nigeria Radio plays 100% local music foreign music mainly hip hop and R&B plays at clubs that is why their entertainment scene is big and has a big influence across the world with artists like D’banj, 2face, Psquare, Naeto C to name a few. They also have a thriving film industry which combined with the music industry contributed USD 350 million to their GDP in 2008 according to the IFPI Report, hence the Nigerian entertainment scene has been named “Nollywood” their TV Stations only play 100% Naija Movies. Foreign movies can be watched at Cinemas. The Nigerian industry has its own channels on DSTV and Channel O where they play only Nigerian Music Videos and movies.
Increase in local quota does not mean only playing Vee, Ekentolo, Slizer, Captain Dira or Mokento, but having balanced airplay where every musician/song will get a fair and equitable chance to play. Currently BTV does not have a single drama or movie playing and the situation has been the same for the past 5 years. The question is how are we going to have a film industry in Botswana. While efforts by Etv to have local comedy, music and lifestyle shows e.t.c is commendable; the station should reduce on becoming an ETV Clone and have a clear programming policy independent of Etv.
I am shocked that BTV in the past years fought hard to buy rights of World Cup, Africa Cup of Nations, Euro Cup while our National Team was not participating in all these tournaments. Millions have been spent in buying international movies, drama, music festivals and documentaries. My advice is the millions invested in the pockets of these foreign broadcasters and producers should be invested in local filmmakers to produce homemade local drama, soapies, documentaries e.t.c. We need to start being bold about our intentions on local empowerment and citizen economic empowerment. We need to be bold and start appreciating our own productions just like in South Africa in the 80’s they used to have horrible productions like Lesilo, Bra Biza, Nkosheng e.t.c. By being patient and building from their mistakes they are now mentioned as one of the film and entertainment powerhouses in the world. The reasons advanced to buy all these sporting tournaments and movies are similar to those that must motivate BTV and Government to purchase local films, drama, and sporting events e.t.c.
Our government and NBB especially must take leaf from the United States. Because of the strong entertainment industry, during the economic recession the entertainment industry in America was the least affected by the downturn. We cannot have a situation where movie makers and musicians that are not popular in their land of origin become popular in Botswana because of our ignorance. The NBB and local broadcasters must lead from the front to correct this anomally.
The 30% local content set forward is too low. I know that normally radio stations like to include news bulletins, segments and drama as local content. NO! These are not local content but mere inserts meant to address specific audiences. If we don’t act on this issue Botswana will continue to export its talent, be it radio presenters, actors, musicians e.t.c. to South Africa because technically we will continue not to have an active industry in Botswana. We need to start creating an enabling environment for local musicians rather than creating a picture where the music industry is taken as a taboo.
Botswana can’t continue as a country that does not have an entertainment industry, like is currently the case. I am not sure what our Cabinet/MPs and Government call local musicians, actors? Do they call them amateurs or clowns or failures or mad people?
When B.O.M.U. brought Motswedingfm to broadcast the B.O.M.U. Music Awards 4 years ago one of the presenters Cebo Manyaapelo said “Ga ke ise ke bone a country so small with so much potential mme batho bateng ba inyatsa mogo kanakana!”
We need to get out of our shells and make things happen for ourselves not anyone else.
Yours In Music
Seabelo Modibe
Record Label Owner
Member of B.O.M.U.’s Finance and Research Committee
[email protected]
