70% of prime time TV should be local content - Awal Mohammed

Awal Mohammed, the Minister-designate for Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts has reiterated the need for the government and stakeholders in the private sector to come together and work towards creating wealth in the creative arts industry.

According to him, creative artists must be supported to enjoy the enormous potential in the sector.

To achieve that, Awal Mohammed says government will partner with movie makers to ensure that they produce enough quality films and series that will meet the demands of television stations.

He announced that a $20million-dollar film studio will be built to become the hub for movie production in the West African sub-region.

This he believes will help limit the proliferation of foreign series and soap operas on Ghanaian television stations.

Awal Mohammed contends that it is important that a significant percentage of content shown on television should reflect Ghanaian culture and norms.

Tourist spent 15% of their money on entertainment because there isn’t much entertainment here. We can’t allow them to come here and be watching western movies, he averred.

“We want to build the studio to help us put out Ghanaian movie series so that primetime on TV should be at least 70% local content. We need to make our creative artists rich and strong. That will boost our creative industry,” he added.