NEW SITCOM BAZUKURU TO PREMIERE ONLINE
relationships within and outside the family. More importantly, the sitcom addresses the issue of a generational gap,” he said.
“Dereck represents the older generation — the one that took pride in the joy of work and sweat to get what one has. He is juxtaposed with his two grandchildren who have never had to work for anything and will do anything to avoid work.
“However, not all hope is lost because Daphne represents millennialists who somehow understand the kind of hard work that it takes to achieve some level of success. Jo on the other hand, represents the percentage of the youth who may not have much, but are still completely comfortable with their lives.”
Bazukuru is set to be distributed online by AfrikaSTV in a bid to tap into the online space which is growing rapidly due to the ongoing lockdown. In April alone, digital content consumption in Zimbabwe increased by about 57 percent.
“In the next two months, we should be done with the post-production. We’re targeting to distribute the sitcom online because if you notice, during this lockdown, digital habits of Zimbabwean people have changed as they’re now consuming their content online.
“We were working on a shoestring budget, but a great team spirit, support from friends and family are making it all happen,” Chikomo said.
e sitcom throughout alludes to the issue of absent parents, a common trend in modern day Africa. – @mthabisi_mthire
THE Zimbabwe Music Rights Association (Zimura) should consider taking up the Sony Music Entertainment Africa model for collecting and giving artistes royalties. The new application has a real time cash out feature for the convenience of artistes. Payments for musicians under Zimura are quite strenuous as artistes have to wait for a year for them to collect their revenue. Usually, they get their payments around this time of the year.
According to Sony Music Entertainment Africa, the two new features — Real Time Earnings and Cash Out, allow artists to view and withdraw earnings faster than ever before through the Sony Music Artist Portal.
During these extraordinary times where artists need immediate access to funds, the Real Time Earnings element of the Sony Music Artist Portal is available anytime, anywhere and provides artistes with immediate updates about their global earnings and account balances while also giving them faster insights into their earnings trends.
The Cash Out element gives artists even greater control over their money by providing them with the ability to request a withdrawal of all, or part of
SONY Music Entertainment Africa recently introduced a unique Artist Portal that allows artists to view their real time earnings and cash out. Most music artists worldwide, make the bulk of their revenue through physical music concerts and with that effectively ruled out at the moment due to the Covid-19 pandemic, their options are limited. As such, artists need immediate access to funds, and that’s where the Artist Portal from Sony comes in. Q. Who can use the portal?
A. Artistes signed by Sony.
Q. What are the benefits of using the app? A. Musicians and artistes can view how well their work is doing globally in real time through the app. This feature eliminates long periodic cycles where artistes had to wait to see royalties and how much they have made. This information will now be availed on this app to artistes anywhere and at any time. Artists will also gain insights on their earning trends, where their music is being bought from and how much. their payable balance and there are no hidden fees or charges that are incurred when doing so.
The Sony Music Artist Portal also allows artistes exclusive access to performance data and insights from digital services like Apple Music and Spotify that report their consumption patterns on a daily basis. Through this feature, artistes get to know their fanbase from an analytical perspective.
Sean Watson, managing director of Sony Music Entertainment Africa said: “The high level of transparency and efficiency in these tools is aimed at making doing business between us clearer, faster, simpler and more direct for our artists and partners and it comes at a time when we all need as much of that as we can get.”
It is innovations like these, born out of rapidly advancing technologies, which will ultimately shape the way the music industry does business going forward.
Zimura can take a leaf from Sony Music to give real time access to artistes collecting their music royalties. One does not need to wait a year to get their money as the money is losing value each passing day.
Artistes could get their royalties from radio stations weekly or monthly when the money still has value.
In these Covid-19 times where money is scarce for artistes, it is vital that they get as much revenue from their music as possible and a real time cash out for their earnings will be very convenient.
With this feature artistes can request the payable balance for their royalties monthly, either in part or in full.
Q. How does the portal work?
A. The Sony Artist Portal App is available on both iOS or Google Play and its services are free of charge. The portal has two functions, Real Time Earnings and Cash Out. The Cash Out element gives artists greater control over their money by providing them with the ability to request a withdrawal of all, or part, of their payable balance, and there are no hidden fees or charges that are incurred when doing so.
Q. How can artistes in Zimbabwe benefit from such a service?
A. Through partnership with the country’s radio stations, Zimura which collects royalties on behalf of artistes in Zimbabwe, needs to come up with a similar initiative that will allow artists to view and withdraw their earnings faster than before. This will also make the issue of royalties more transparent.