Entertainment review shows are ‘killing’ Ghana Showbiz

• Posted on January 16, 2015January 16, 2015
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

Every Saturday between the hours of 10am – 6 pm, the various Ghanaian radio stations are inundated with entertainment review shows. They criticallyu perform postmortem on the various entertainment stories that made headlines within the week.

Almost every radio station in Ghana has this type of radio programme and most are aired on weekends. Hankerings to be the best amongst colleagues poke the hosts and producers of these programmes to do the unusual to stand out. Many a times, most of the interviews done on these shows are given to Bloggers and Journalists (I am a beneficiary) to make stories out of them.

In most cases, the Presenters want the Reporters to write on the sensitive aspect of the interviews. They (Presenters) often send a truncated voice interview containing the sensitive side of the interviews to the Reporters. These have caused irreparable damages to a lot of celebrities which has made a lot of celebrities media-unfriendly now. An epitome is Mzbel.

Listening to such programmes which are mostly a platform for criticisms, many do not offer alternatives or solutions to what they loudly criticize. The discerning Ghanaian is demanding constructive criticisms by offering alternatives rather than wholesale condemnation. The truth is, most celebrities listen to such shows and they incorporate useful feedbacks into their development programs.

I was listening to a popular entertainment review show with a Ghanaian Artiste and after the programme, he asked me what I learnt from what we both listened. “You see, all they came to do is condemn and criticize, they did not give solutions to what they said we are doing wrong,” a celebrated Artiste said.

Again, to get headlines, the Presenters mostly focus on the negativity of what the celebrities do, like Sarkodie better said in ‘Free Press’ mixtape “…cos negativity sells.” Most negative stories that are sourced from entertainment review shows trend more than the positive ones. One would argue that, it is the demand of the market, agreed, but we are in the age where people’s views are mostly shaped by the media. The media have shaped the taste of the market to gladly have welcoming arms to negative stories.

When Tiwa Savage’s nude picture leaked online, the Nigerian media killed the story instantly. Monitoring the popular Nigerian blogs, they had a lot of diversional stories to kill the story, but in the case of Raquel, the media, both on air and online were feasting on it.

When Sarkodie allegedly performed at the BET LIVE EXPERIENCE to the cleaners and technicians, that was enough story to sustain 2 hour entertainment review shows in Ghana. For the records, Ice Prince, Mafikizolo and Tiwa Savage also performed on same stage. A colleague Nigerian Blogger after seeing the criticisms by the Ghanaian media about Sarkodie’s alleged performance to the cleaners asked me on Blackberry Messenger (BBM) “bro, are your Bloggers for the betterment of Ghana Showbiz or the collapse of it? I come online and all I see are defamatory stories about your stars. Do you know the Nigerian Showbiz is mostly guarded? The showbiz was used to divert the attention of the world that Nigeria is a 419 country so a lot of money was put into it by President Obasanjo to paint the country as the best in music and films so we don’t just put anything out.”

M.I Abaga, a celebrated Nigerian Artiste in ‘1 naira’ had a line in his rap “…. I will follow you like 3 blind mices,” mices? But that was not even ‘vuvuzeled’ to affect the celebration of the Rapper as the best in West Africa (my Nigerian Blogger told me) but when Sarkodie said ‘Irish cream,’ hmmm!

The contributions of the entertainment review shows are so appreciated but it is time to offer alternatives and solutions when the myriad of criticisms are made.

Let’s criticize but that should come with solutions and alternatives.

Author: Nana Kwesi Coomson (www.233times.net)