Macra to train broadcasters on content
The Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (Macra) will next week hold a workshop for broadcasters on content production.
Macra Communications Manager, Clara Mwafulirwa, said the organisation has organised the workshop to find solutions to challenges that content service providers face in producing quality content for their broadcasting channels.
“Macra has licensed over 70 broadcasters out of which 26 are local television channels, with 24 operational. These broadcasters have a condition to broadcast 60 per cent local content and 40 per cent foreign. But the current trend is that they are broadcasting more foreign material,” she said.
Mwafulirwa said her organisation believes that the workshop will help to improve the quality of local content that the Malawian audience is consuming from the local television broadcasting channels.
Mwafulirwa pointed out that Malawi’s broadcasting industry is characterised by lack of technical know-how , lack of necessary tools to produce local content, lack of cultural awareness , practice-related needs, lack of motivation and lack of creativity and critical thinking skills.
“Macra believes that the broadcasting industry can greatly contribute to the economy of this country, if content producers are empowered and driven towards the right direction.
“Commercially we can produce our films on a bigger scale, produce documentaries and sell them on the international market. This will avert the trend of being a consumer of foreign content and in the long run, be able to safeguard our cultural values,” she said.
According to Macra, the workshop participants have been drawn from the local industry and presentations will be made by experts from the academia, Multichoice South Africa and financial institutions among others.
The mushrooming of television broadcasters has been necessitated by the migration from analogue to digital system of broadcasting, which is presenting the opportunity of more local channels for people to make choices, with better picture quality than was the case before.
The workshop will be held from 7-9 February in Lilongwe.
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