{UAH} Uganda Vision; ATTENTION ROBERT ATUHAIRWE $ TONY OWANA

I checked up on this TV station this monday. This time there was a
woman by the name of Namatovu presenting. I will leave her looks
aside, but she wore such a ridiculous wig with shoulder length
hair-the oriental style-that made her look like a fool frankly. She
apologised for the programme being repeated 4 times in a row, first in
English and then she changed to Luganda. I had some friends at home-
and I was explaining to them that there are a lot of broadcasts from
Africa these days, but imagine my horror when this Namatovu started
speaking in luganda!!

I quickly changed the channel and then moved over to the South African
eNCCA, to the Nigerian Arise, and to a lot of other programmes from
Nigeria, Ghana and Egypt that also rent out cable spaces like Uganda
Vision.

I think we still have a long way to go, if a Ugandan TV channel is
broadcasting in Luganda. But I take the point you Robert made about
the audience they want to attract, and I think you were right. In
otherwords, Uganda Vision does not really want to be the Ugandan
version of Al Jazeera, or eNCCA or Arise. Theyare still a long, long
way off the pace.

And this is not to say that I am hostile to Luganda or to African
languages. The point I try to make is intricately linked to audience.
Who is Uganda Vision's target audince? If it is the baganda in the
diaspora, then there is nothing wrong because they can easily reach
that target. But if it is a Ugandan audience then they had better go
back to the drawing board. And if it is an international audience,
then they should simply stop wasting their money on expensive fees
they have to pay in hiring cabal TV time.

I ask you to compare Uganda Vision and another Cable TV programme here
which also presnts mainly in luganda to the Nigerian or Ghanaian TV.
These west African stations are very sensitive on the issue of
language, I suppose because they don't want their audiences to be
restricted linguistically. So that all their programmes are broadcast
in English- all of them. In documentaries or movies, which are in
local languages, they sub-title them so that people who don't speak
that particular language can follow the broadcast. On VOX TV and on
Africa Channel, I have watched several luganda films, but they are
sub-titled so that a non-luganda speaker can understand and follow the
drama.

So why can't our Ugandan TV entrepreneurs follow the example of the
Wset Africans? I know very well we can not yet reach the standards of
eNCCA or Arise because those are very well funded- in fact I read
Arise has a working capital of over £20 million, which a Ugandan TV
channel can not afford. But we have to start somewhere. Broadcasting
only in luganda or luganda mixed with English is a very poor start in
my view because it gives a very blinkered view of the country. If I
ana non-Ugandan and I want to know more about Uganda for eg for
tourism or investment, I am not likely to look at Uganda Vision. But
you just open up one of the Ghana cable TV channels, you just marvel
how beautifully they have modelled their advertisements targetting an
international audience and not a Fante or Asante audience.

George Okello