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Spectrum TV goes global with Telesud
By Franklin Sone-Bayern in Yaounde.
Sources : Herald Today
The ambitious private television channel based in Douala (Cameroon), Spectrum Television, STV is showing even more ambition as it launched a partnership with an international television channel, Telesud recently.
STV and Telesud will exchange programmes, share human resources and information technology facilities to enable STV to broaden its outreach through Telesud that is broadcasting on satellite, cable and internet to Africa, Middle East, Europe and North America.
Telesud on its part will benefit from STV coverage of Cameroon and neigbouring countries to increase its scope of coverage to reflect its image as an emerging pan-African and Afro channel. Chosen STV programmes will be broadcast on Telesud that is on the bouquet of Canal Satellite Horizons, distributed in Cameroon by Spectrum Group since a fortnight.
The general managers of all three media outfits were present at the launching ceremony at the Yaounde Hilton: Constant Nemale for Telesud, Jean Christophe Ramos for Canal Satellite and Ekoko Mukete accompanied by his deputy Ben Fondufe for Spectrum Group, owners of STV, whose general manager Senegalese-born Mactar Sylla was also present with his editor-in-chief Thierry Ngongang.
Mukete narrated how much the Spectrum Group price Sylla whose enviable profile as a media manager from TV5 Afrique through World Space and Africa Online to the Senegal Radio Television, RTS, left Spectrum wondering if they would be able to hire his services. “But here is Mactar Sylla with STV,” Mukete said boastfully.
Presenting Telesud that was described by an observer as Africa’s CNN, its general manager, Cameroonian-born Constant Nemale said it was created in 1998 by himself, three other Cameroonians, a Togolese and three non-Africans as the first Afro-European TV channel.
Backing up Nemale in presenting Telesud, its vice president and marketing manager, Yves Ballanga also Cameroonian, said Telesud is Afro-European because though based in Paris, its programme content is largely on people in Africa and of African origin like African Americans and West Indians. Telesud is therefore supposed to be a channel that rallies people of African origin all over the world, Ballanga said.
Telesud, he said, broadcasts news, talk-shows, sport, music, other cultural and entertainment programmes and magazines on society. It covers 30 countries south of the Sahara and has 10 million subscribers in the US. Its website registers over 20,000 visits per day and has had over three million visits since it was launched in 1998. Its target is to reach over 35 million people of African origin in Europe and three million in the US.
The former executive chairman of the African Development Bank, Babakar Ndiaye is chairman of Telesud’s board of directors that also has as co-vice chair, NBA basketball star Tariq Abdul Wahad, whose career has been managed by the Telesud’s GM, Cameroonian-born Constant Nemale.
STV’s partnership with Telesud is not its first as it already collaborates with CNN and ESPN both in the US, AfriSAT, a South Africa-based NEPAD-sponsored TV channel and PANAM SAT.
Link with 3A Telesud :
http://www.telesud.com
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