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Melissa Mpofu in South Africa Showbiz Editor
SATURDAY, November 29 is a day most artistes in Nigeria and South Africa are looking forward to as they will converge on the Nasrec Expo Centre in Soweto, South Africa to be celebrated for their contributions to the arts industry. But, that is not the case for other artistes, not only in Zimbabwe, but the rest of Africa as they will have to watch the awards from the comfort of their homes because they have failed to penetrate the music channel.

Among the nominated artistes are South Africa’s Cassper Nyovest, Ricky Rik, Bucie, Uhuru, Mafikizolo, Donald, DJ Clock and Nigeria’s Emmy G, Davido, KCee, P Square and Iyanya, among others.

While artistes from Zimbabwe have from time to time been urged to submit quality music videos for airplay at the popular channel, they have rarely been accepted, with no reasons being given for the rejection. Even though local artistes such as Simba Tagz have invested heavily in their videos, having them recorded in South Africa by professional producers, they still have not been given slots on Channel O.

As a result, most artistes, especially from Zimbabwe, have lost hope in the music channel which they believe only prefers music from South Africa-based Buffalo Souljah and artistes whom he records for including former Miss Zimbabwe, Vanessa Sibanda.

But, it seems there is more to it as the music channel which mainly plays Nigerian, South African and American music may have been shutting out other artistes, not because their music is sub-standard, but because they are from countries with markets which are not commercially viable.

However, the channel seems to have realised its bias and is now looking for ways to include content from other parts of the continent through different strategies.

Quizzed why Channel O had a bias towards South African and Nigerian music, M-Net director for local interest channels in South Africa, Nkateko Mabaso, said like any business, their focus was on producing content for commercially viable markets.

“Like any other business, we focus on producing products in areas where there’s going to be some sort of return so that the initiative is sustainable.

“But we’ve a long term strategy in place regarding how we’re going to include diverse content from the region,” Mabaso said.

He said Nigeria had a lot of content being aired on their platforms as it was a market which was commercially viable.

“Nigeria was our biggest drive before, but now we’ve moved to East Africa as they’re growing. We recently launched Maisha Magic in Kenya to cater for that market and are now re-evaluating our southern offering, looking at what audiences in the region want to watch,” Mabaso said.

He, however, dismissed allegations that Channel O had preferred artistes.

“There’s nothing like we prefer certain artistes over others. They all have equal opportunities to submit their videos.

“There’re certain processes which have to be followed and forms which need to be filled for all artistes to have their music played on that station, that’s all,” he said.

Mabaso said their broad strategy was to localise each market so that their product offering is eventually localised overtime.