Zim Radio Awards set for October
THERE is never a shortage of awards initiatives in Zimbabwe - it seems a new one is born every day.
The latest one on the scene is the Zimbabwe Radio Awards (ZIRA), a brainchild of Munashe Chidongwe and Agrippa Palazi, co-owners of online magazine, Celebrity Check.
Running under the theme “Honouring a celebrity behind a celebrity”, the event will be held on October 29 at the 7 Arts Theatre, Avondale. While this is a good initiative, this project has been rocked by several challenges from the word go.
The inaugural edition was supposed to take place in July but was postponed to October as organisers said the voting platform was not ready. This event has been criticised for various reasons since its birth with most people questioning its credibility.
The Sunday Mail Leisure caught up with ZIRA founding partner Munashe Chidongwe, who shed more light on the awards. He said they had decided to host the awards to honour radio personalities while at the same time showcasing their talent.
“The awards are meant for radio personalities, in recognition of their work in informing and entertaining people while at the same time motivating them to work hard. These awards will encourage and inspire young people to get involved in the media industry as they will be enlightened about the profession,” said Chidongwe.
The nominees came from all the major radio stations, that is, Star FM, ZiFM, Power FM, SFM, Radio Zimbabwe and National FM.
The organisers have come under fire for having too many nominees from a pool of very few radio stations. Considering that the candidates were picked from six radio stations, it is ridiculous to have 86 nominees in 28 categories.
This simply means almost every radio personality in the country was nominated for one thing or another, which brings up the argument of the awards’ credibility. Established awards ceremonies have a hard time dealing with a lesser number of categories, which means these newbies are running the risk of hosting a disastrous debut.
Chidongwe, however, defended their position saying they had done so as a way of bringing awareness to the event.
“For an inaugural event we wanted every radio personality involved in the awards as we would like them to know about the event and know its value. In the coming editions the number will decrease as we will also involve community radio stations next year.”
When it comes to awards ceremonies, people are always curious about the criteria used to come up with the nominees for each category.
Chidongwe refused to divulge the names of the people they had engaged to select the nominees for each category but claimed that the selection team were radio experts.
“We had a team of 15 people who are knowledgeable about radio. They listened to radio for six to eight weeks and selected people who were good on radio in terms of language, playlists and communication with the audience. We liaised with the radio stations so it was easy to come up with the nominees and different categories.”
This seems to be a daunting task for 15 people considering the number of radio programmes running 24 hours a day, week in week out, across all radio stations.
While the organisers failed to clarify how the adjudicators carried out their duties, several questions will definitely be asked about their effectiveness. In this day and age where the internet has taken over almost everything, the organisers opted for an SMS voting platform rather than an online voting system.
“The SMS voting platform is there for people from all over Zimbabwe to also get involved in the awards because some- one in remote parts of the country who listens to radio needs to have a chance to vote for the personalities they love on radio.”
He added that they initially had challenges in securing funds for the event but several sponsors later came on board.
“We have partnered with several sponsors who include Astro Mobile, Dairibord Zimbabwe Pvt Ltd, PowerTel, Jan Jam, The Volt and Cytnet ICT,” he said.