Ghana Television Awards: Who is in and who is out?

There had been talks about an impending Ghana Television Awards for a while. The question, when the issue came up was, how different would it be from the Radio and TV Personality (RTP) Awards that had been running for the past four years?

It was explained that the new awards scheme would be different in many ways.

Indeed, when the communications started and the explanations were given, it was obvious that it would be different from the RTP most especially in the process to choosing a winner.

While the RTP Award is mainly a popularity based competition, in that, winners are chosen solely based on votes by the public; the new scheme will rely on an academy style known as the Awards Faculty to choose winners.

Also, different is the fact that the new scheme showed a lot more transparency in the manner by which they have gone with the awards from one stage to the other.

Last Thursday, they held a news conference in Accra to brief the media about the process so far and to release the list of nominations to be voted upon.

The list, although had some big names missing, in my view, gave some confidence that good planning and involvement of industry people can yield good results.

It must be noted that every television station that is interested in getting their station, shows or presenters nominated would have to submit their work according to a certain pre-announced criterion.

There is no such a thing as a random nomination of television shows or presenters.

As you may have heard for many weeks now, the awards is hinged on a peer review process where industry experts who form the faculty are the ones who go through the works presented by the stations and decide through their knowledge and expertise in their chosen area to choose which programme and not the other.

Thus the list that was presented to the media and read by the Project Manager of the Ghana Television Awards, Gideon Jingles Oyiadzo was indeed what the Awards Faculty had sat and chosen and that which they will vote on to choose winners before the awards events take place.

What this means is that if you do not see your favourite television show or presenter in the list of nominees then it/they were either not chosen by the faculty as the work didn’t meet its standards or the station did not submit it for nomination.

I took the time to count the number of nominations that each station received and it was clear that the nation’s most watched television station, TV3 had emerged as the station with most nominations in the respective categories. 13 nominations went to TV3.

This may be good news prima facie, but opening it up a bit will show that the station has lost on the bragging right to other stations on some key programme genres.

Conspicuously missing from the list of nominees was the station’s leading news programme on prime time television, News 360 in the Television News Presentation category.

This is the flagship programme of the station. It is the most watched news show on TV, and it is the programme on which the station charges advertisers the most.

Thus, it not being nominated means they did not do their homework properly. A faculty member explained that it was so because TV3 did not submit any work for that category.

Although TV3 might just have to console themselves that they were not the only victims in this category as their key competitors such as those on the Joy News channel on Multi TV, GTV, Metro TV, Viasat1 TV and UTV were missing as well.

The nominees include ETV Evening News, TV Africa Evening News and Omnibuzz on GhOne.

There is no denying the fact that TV3 has some of the classiest and presentable news presenters on television and so you can imagine my shock when I saw none of them nominated in the presenters’ category for the awards.

Those who made it to the list of Television News Anchor are Nhyiraba Aggrey (Akan Kasiebo), TV Africa, Rebekah Adwoa Awuah (GBC 24 News), GTV; Paul Anomah-Kordie (Prime News), ETV; Akushika Aquaye (GTV News), GTV; and Keminni Amanor (News Desk) Joy News.

TV3 had revamped their morning show. They had changed a lot of things about it including the studio, the look and feel and also the presenters. Benny Blanco seats with Nana Aba Anamoah, Sandra Ankobiah and Ama K. Abebrese on weekday mornings to present the revamped show.

However, New Day was not in the list of nominees for Television Morning Show just as its elder cousin on GTV. This could either mean that the stations did not submit their shows for nomination or the shows did not meet the standards of the Awards Faculty.

The morning shows that made it to the category are Morning Ride on Metro TV, This Morning on Viasat1 TV, Breakfast TV on ETV, Bedwam on Adom TV and The First Show on 1st Digital TV.

Note that Metro TV’s most watched programme Good Morning Ghana was not the one who was nominated!

If I were at TV3, another programme that I will question why it wasn’t nominated would definitely be Music Music. There is no denying the fact that Music Music doesn’t have the shine it used to have, but even then considering the programmes that were nominated in the category for Television Variety Or Music Show, that programme ought to be there.

The nominees for this categories are 4 Syte TV show - 4syte, TV Allo Tigo - Metro TV, Sound Splash - TV Africa, Rhythmz - GhOne, Adom Concert Party - Adom TV.

Again it could be because they did not submit any work for this category.

With eleven nominations and a big surprise to match, the station with the next highest number of nominations was TV Africa.

They were followed by Viasat1, GhOne and Adom TV with six nominations apiece, ETV followed with four nominations while GTV, Metro TV, Afro Star TV, Joy News and Home Base TV had three nominations respectively.

Bringing the rear were Cine Afrik and 4 Kids TV with two nominations apiece as well as 4Syte TV and 1st Digital TV who each had a nomination.

In order to make the nominations and the eventual winners very credible, the event organisers have involved external partners such as the Electoral Commission of Ghana.

“The peer review process of pruning the entries from stakeholders was supervised by the National Electoral Commission and other stakeholders such PKF the official accounting partner for Television Awards Ghana Festival,” a statement said.

They added “the final voting by the Awards Faculty for who wins in the categories outlined shall be conducted on 26th September 2014 at Alisa Hotel.”

There will be 33 awards in total to be presented to deserving winners at the maiden Ghana Television Awards. The awards will be held in two parts – an Industry Awards Night and Primetime Awards night.

The Industry Dinner and Awards Night will be on Friday, October 3, 2014 and will see the awarding of 12 industry awards.

The Primetime Awards will be held a week later on Friday, October 10, 2014. There will 17 awards voted for by the Awards Faculty and presented on this night.

Also, on the night of the Primetime awards “four popular awards with 100 per cent public voting and supervised by SMSGH and the accounting partner shall also be awarded,” according to the organisers.

This is the maiden event but thus far Jingles and his team have shown they can be trusted for transparency and forthrightness in organising such a big event.

The early teething problems can be pardoned, but the trajectory if followed will ensure credibility for the event.