ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR
ZIMBABWE’s leading independent national television station, 3Ktv, turns three today, having made tremendous commercial progress over the past year despite the country’s challenging operating environment.
Pilate Machadu, the Group CEO of Jester Media Services (JMS) — the owners of 3Ktv — told the Daily News yesterday that the station had performed well all round over the past 12 months, at a time that industry peers were taking significant strain.
“It is most pleasing to see that 3Ktv is continuing to perform well ahead of all our projections — including with regards to its commercial sustainability.
“This is all thanks to the incredible support of our viewers and valued business partners, as well as our content providers and the dedication of our staff across our group.
“With this winning combination, it is little wonder that all credible research confirms that 3Ktv is the market leader by some distance on satellite television. It has also rapidly become an indispensable part of the wider local broadcasting industry,” Machadu said.
“To say, therefore, that we are excited about what the future holds for 3Ktv and our entire group is an understatement.
“We are confident that things will only get better for the station and the rest of our well-known media assets that include the iconic Daily News, the Daily News On Sunday and The Financial Gazette, the country’s number one business publication.
“Of course, we are not sitting on our laurels. Indeed, we are ramping up our strategies and continuing to make significant new investments in all our areas of operation that encompass print, broadcasting and digital,” Machadu added.
He also lauded JMS’s enduring “win-win partnership” with MultiChoice Africa, which has meant that 3Ktv is available to a wider audience and important market on DStv.
On his part, Zweli Sibanda — the managing director of JMS’s Broadcasting Division — told the Daily News that 3Ktv continued to be “a game changer in local broadcasting and in terms of the production, marketing and consumption of TV products.
“The support that we continue to receive from our viewers and advertisers, as well as content creators, is well beyond what we ever envisaged.
“We do not take this amazing support from all these key stakeholders for granted, and we pledge to them that we will continue to aspire to do even better going forward,” he said.
Sibanda added that 3Ktv had become a boon for the business community, the government and civil society, as it offered them an optimal communication channel, marketing choice and planning flexibility on the silver screen.
“Advertising on television, and on 3Ktv in particular, is very effective in terms of reaching large audiences frequently and quickly, given the ubiquitousness of TV sets in the country.
“Another one of 3Ktv’s advantages for our business partners and stakeholders is that we are also on MultiChoice’s DStv platform which has very high engagement rates.
“Our rich programming menu also offers the benefit of excellent audience targeting, which has long been a part of TV marketing — such as advertising at certain times of the day and on certain programmes to make sure that one hits the right people who will be watching 3Ktv at a particular time,” Sibanda said further.
3Ktv is a free-to-air (FTA), digital terrestrial television (DTT) station. This means that contrary to social media babble, anyone with the right equipment — such as a suitable set-top box — can receive its programming for free wherever the signal is available.
However, 3Ktv’s feed is also available through other platforms for which subscription fees may be payable.
This explains the commercial station’s key partnership with MultiChoice which has seen it also hosted on DStv’s channel 293.
Licensed in November 2020 after coming up tops in a competitive, open bidding process, the country’s fastest-growing station went live amid palpable excitement nationally on February 28, 2022.
In the process, the most watched local channel on satellite made history and became the first private station to operate legally in Zimbabwe since television was first introduced in the then Southern Rhodesia in November 1960.
The station has won numerous awards for its unique and riveting programming over the past three years.
In December last year, 3Ktv once again dominated and also won the prestigious ‘Popular Television Station’ award at the esteemed Zimbabwe Annual Film and Television Awards (ZAFTAs) that were held in Harare then. “Winning the ZAFTAs’ Popular Television Station award again was huge, as it cemented the fact that 3Ktv represents ‘The Very Best of Zimbabwe’, as our famous motto goes.
“Indeed, the future is bright for 3Ktv and the possibilities for the station are boundless if we keep innovating and working as hard as we are currently doing.
“Kudos are due to the station’s conscientious team, and indeed to the whole JMS family for its unwavering support, which resulted in this incredible achievement,” the station’s ecstatic general manager, Abigail Mvududu, said at the time. At the 2024 ZAFTAs, the station’s productions scored wins for Inkaba, Love and Reality, Village 4 and Bundu. Among other awards, John Mabuyane received the Outstanding Directing gong for Inkaba, while Joylene Ismail of The Design Show took home the Outstanding Television Presenter title.
The previous year’s edition of the awards were equally successful for 3Ktv, with wins for Outstanding Television Presenter (the bubbly Edith Marwiro who is popularly known as Mazwi), Outstanding Television Actor (Lucian David), Outstanding Television Series (Faking It), and Outstanding Indigenous Culture, Language, and Tradition (Hakata).
Amanxeba also swept four categories, including Outstanding Directing and Popular Television Series then.
Following the 2023 harmonised elections, the European Union Election Observer Mission (EU EOM) became the latest organisation to vouch for the balanced reportage of 3Ktv and its sister media offerings, the Daily News and the Daily News On Sunday.
In doing so, the EU EOM joined many other significant institutions and individuals who have given the thumbs up to the truthful, impartial and impactful journalism of news brands under the JMS group — the fastest-growing and most influential media house in the country.
In its final report on the national elections, the EU EOM variously described the reportage of the Daily News, the Daily News On Sunday and 3Ktv on the polls as “egalitarian” and “neutral” — unlike competitor media outlets which were found to have taken decidedly partisan positions.
Commenting on the EU EOM’s observations at the time, JMS Group Editor-in-Chief, Guthrie Munyuki, said he was “delighted to see yet another notable organisation affirming our journalism” — adding that the results of this approach were apparent in the commercial sustainability of the group.
“It’s heartening to note that many people and organisations appreciate that we continue to tell the Zimbabwean story like it is.
“This is very important because in a highly-polarised and politics-obsessed society such as ours, facts and truth are almost always the first casualty.
“As a result, for many of our peers what is right and wrong, and true or false, depends entirely on who this helps or hurts, or what they get out of the situation — all to the detriment of the country. We always stick to the facts,” Munyuki underlined.
“We do this because we care a great deal about our industry and our country, especially taking into account the media sector’s critical role in the life of Zimbabwe’s developmental quests.
“In this light, we firmly believe that our nascent democracy can only thrive if the media are free, tell it like it is as we always do, and also respect the key principles of journalism.
“After all, what watchdog or developmental role can an incompetent, lying, compromised or foolishly partisan media play in the life of a nation such as ours?” Munyuki added.
