Urgent appeal to the SABC and e.tv

Percy Mabandu is convinced that SABC viewers may just be moved to pay their TV licences if the public broadcaster’s programming improved

This is a letter of request to both the national broadcaster, the SABC, and free-to-air TV channel e.tv. Well, you too if you really care.

The two broadcasters will need to be reliable entertainers in the following weeks as the holiday season winds down.

With Christmas and New Year’s Day behind us, it means there will be little to look forward to by way of grand excitements – and hardly any more cash to spend. So we’ll all be lounging in the living room.

Now let’s not be judgemental, for many there’s no alternative to this couch potato tendency.

In any case, anybody who grew up in those areas where recreation facilities are the stuff of novelty should know how indispensable good TV programming can be.

Which brings me to the main reason for this letter. To e.tv, may we please not be subjected to those insufferable and unending reruns of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) this coming new year?

If you must drown us in American sports programmes, at least give us more variety. Consider basketball and other competitive sports.

Hell, we will even accept their derivative of rugby: American football. Anything but more WWE.

There’s also that lousy tendency to repeat old movies. It too must not survive into the New Year or I swear I’m going to burn my TV set if I see another run of Anaconda or any Chuck Norris film.

Now dear SABC, wouldn’t it be nice of you to give us a window into the rest of the continent? I hear Ethiopia has one of the most thriving film industries in Africa.

It’s obvious there’s a lot of people from the Horn of Africa in our land. I say you have an opportunity to build cultural bridges there.

So instead of cheap American programmes, why not have cheap products from all over the continent? The success of Nollywood must surely tell you that we have an appetite for African stories.

Oh! But there’s also a need to smart up too. I swear, many people might just be moved to pay their TV licences if they thought they were learning something worthwhile.

So be creative with informative documentaries. But more urgently, start over the next few weeks.