The Sunday Mail
Tendai Manzvanzvike Divine Appointments
ON April 2, I wrote a piece titled “We need better Christian channels” in which I raised concerns that DStv viewers are probably being short-changed through programmes aired by Trinity Broadcasting Network in Africa and Faith Broadcasting Network.
I wrote in part: “With the exception of One Gospel and Emmanuel TV, the other two still have to demonstrate that they are indeed African TV stations whose target audiences are the people of Africa first.
Over and above that, subscribers not just in Zimbabwe need a sense of ownership of the content, since part of their subscription goes towards those TV stations. So far, the only Zimbabwean preacher on one of the stations, FBN, is Celebration Church’s Pastor Tom Deuschle.
Where are all the other preachers and their churches? It might seem inconsequential, but one region with pastors based in South Africa cannot represent the whole continent.
“One pastor said … while they see nothing wrong with their brothers and sisters from the United States of America sharing the channels with them, the feeling is that the representation favours the latter, and not them…”
The writer sent a questionnaire to both TBN in Africa and FBN, and only the former responded. Although FBN acknowledged receipt of the questionnaire and said the questions had been sent to the relevant personalities, at the time of going to press, they had not responded.
However, the writer last week picked up information announced by Dr Andre Roebert during their FaithConnect, that they were in the process of signing a mega deal, which would make FBN the only African televangelist network, with a line-up of African preachers broadcasting beyond the continent, starting with the United States of America.
Since the publication of the article, there has also been an addition to the family of Christian channels on DStv – God.tv, but the major personalities broadcasting on TBN and FBN are also on God.tv.
This gives the impression that there is a small group of ministers and their ministries that dominate the Digital Satellite TV service, at a huge cost to consumers. Below is the written interview the writer (TM) had with the South Africa-based TBN in Africa:
- For how long has TBN been broadcasting in Africa, why, and what is the estimated viewership?
TBN: Thank you for connecting with us! TBN has had a presence in parts of Africa since 1987, and got on to DStv in 2002. TBN went off DStv in 2014 and relaunched back onto DStv on channel 343 on 4 March 2016.
We don¹t have viewership numbers as the sample data which we receive from DStv only includes South African numbers and not the whole of Africa. But, we broadcast in 52 countries in Africa, so we have a very large footprint, which is great.
TM: Can you say that you are adequately meeting your viewers’ needs in terms of programme content? If yes, how? Are you giving them their money’s worth?
TBN: We constantly review our programming and are always trying to bring new, fresh content that is relevant to the viewers.
Over this past year, our mission was to bring in more local content on our platform, and to date we are definitely achieving our goals, as we are on about 44 percent local content per week (plus or minus 73 hours per week).
TM: How do preachers become part of your programming? Is there a special criteria to land regular programming on your station?
TBN: Yes, potential programmers send us copies of their content (via an application process on our website).We have a team that checks the content and the ministry to ensure they align with our broadcast standards and statement of faith.
We have regular checks in place to make sure they stay aligned.
TM: As a station broadcasting in Africa, why is it that there are more US preachers than Africa? Where African preachers are used, why is it that most of them are from West Africa, but based in South Africa?
TBN: A lot of our prime time slots are US preachers as they are our best viewed and most requested preachers by our viewers e.g. Joel Osteen, TD Jakes, Joseph Prince, Joyce Meyer, Steven Furtick, etc.
As mentioned in Q2, we have around 44 percent local content on our platform and some of our most viewed local preachers are Pastor Ray McCauley, Bishop MosaSono, Angus Buchan, etc. We are always looking for new programmers, especially local programmers and are open for anyone to send through an application.
We have recently started travelling into Africa to start building new relationships with African ministers and ministries with the vision to build relationships and ultimately to find new amazing local programmers.
TM: Many subscribers have complained about the airing of repeats, without notice. One programme can be repeated more than three times a week. Why is that so?
TBN: Our strategy is to not repeat programmes.However, we rely on programmers to submit their content in time.
Sometimes when the content doesn’t reach us in time, we have to repeat a programme. Our prime time morning slots air a fresh programme everyday, which is repeated in the evening slot.
We do find that viewers sometimes switch between channels on DStv and since some other Christian channels sometimes air similar ministers, it could seem like we are repeating.
TM: We have also seen that there are preachers you air that are also aired by your competitor – Faith Broadcasting Network – sometimes same content and same time. These are mostly American preachers. Your comment?
TBN: Most of the international programmers have a blanket licence with the global office, and they request to air at a specific time, which means that some of them will playout at the same time on different channels. In most cases we try to avoid this.
We have to keep trying to be relevant and fresh as far as possible, and you might have noticed that we have brought in a lot of new content over the past months that are exclusive to TBN, and our vision is to keep doing this.
We are currently looking for premises where we can build/renovate studios where we can start producing more original content.
We are excited about this new season and pray that God will send us the right relationships to do this according to His will.
And, we don’t really see FBN as our competitors. We believe in unity in the body of Christ so that we can all together reach as many people as possible with the Gospel of Christ.
So yes, we do keep each other on our toes to ensure we bring the viewers the best possible quality content that is relevant to the viewer, but our heart is that all Christian broadcasters excel in what they do, as we all need to stand together and prove to the world that Christian content can compete with secular/non-Christian content. We strive for excellence and want to bring glory to the name of Jesus! 🙂
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