Information, Media and Broadcasting Services Permanent Secretary George Charamba has implored independent content producers to up their game ahead of Zimbabwe’s migration to the digitalization era.
Charamba singled out Manicaland Province for lagging behind in terms of content production adding that the infrastructure set up is almost complete.
“Masvingo is leading in terms of good content production, with promising work from Bulawayo, Binga and Lupane, but Mutare is rather sluggish.
“Focus is to reach out to growth points and broaden the content production catchment and stimulate the creative industry to produce content to fill up the space,” said Charamba.
He added that government has made a huge sacrifice by prioritizing allocation of funds towards the digitalization programme, hence the onus is now on the creative industry to rise to the occasion.
The government, as part of preparatory work for the launch of the full scale digitalization programme is busy setting up new transmission sites, digitalizing the existing ones, whilst studios at Pockets Hill have been fully digitalized.
The switch from analogue to digital broadcasting which is part of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) recommendations will create more television channels and present employment and empowerment opportunities as well as reviving the creative industry to produce more content.
However, the process is more than a year behind as it was supposed to have been completed by 17 June 2015.
Government of Zimbabwe is blaming lack of funds for failure to meet the ITU deadline.
