Taxi Driver, the popular weekly TV series will start showing on Togo's Afrique Cable at the end of this month. The late John K's soap will also show on Reminiscent Television, in London in July.
Presently, the production house behind the series- Village Communications preparing the French version of taxi driver for that station. Village Communications has finished 9 out of the 13 French voice-overs needed to start running the series on Afrique Cable.
But the production house has been in the teeth of the many problems and setbacks local production houses face; the initial investment for productions, sponsorship to have their productions screened on TV station and the amounts the TV stations pay as rights.
Village Communications, also behind another series, No 5 Kotokroba Street, have revealed that Taxi Driver had to stay on the shelf for about one and a half years before they could raise money from sponsors to screen the production.
An average amount of ?13 million is spent in producing a single slot of the production. Aside that, an amount of ?5 million is paid for airtime.
And are they making profit?
"We are not making anything now, the only thing we have solace in is that we have a programme.
We expect to make some profit when they re-run the series," says Yaw Boakye, the General Manager of Village Communications.
To put on the 30 minute production, the producers had to start with the pre-production stage, where scripts from commissioned scriptwriters and the public are looked at to fit the criteria of the series.
Guests artistes that will feature in the production are subsequently selected. The production house has between 300 and 400 applicants that want to feature in their production.
Three people who fit the description of the roles are selected, and auditioned to select one for that role.
The crew and the cast have a rehearsal a day before they go on the field to shoot.
It takes between two and three days to shoot that 30-minute slot. Editing takes also between two and three days.
Boakye said it should have taken a week to do that kind of job but that would have meant high overheads up to about ?100 million.
He said if they get the volume of sponsorship that they desire, they could polish their series to compare with other foreign productions such as La Usurpadora and others.
For the Village Communications, there is no stopping now. They have a number of productions in store and are ultimately looking at screening six productions per week.
