By Ashley Moyo
INDEPENDENT commercial television station, 3Ktv, is extending its partnership with the Republic of Korea Embassy in Zimbabwe, which will now see Seoul providing top animation programmes to the fast-growing national broadcaster.
Speaking in Harare on Tuesday, at the signing ceremony of the tie-up, 3Ktv station manager, Abigail Mvududu, said the latest cooperation between the parties would see local viewers enjoying the “very best” of children’s programming from South Korea.
This comes as 3Ktv, the most watched local television channel on satellite, continues to grow from strength to strength. The free-to-air station is also available on DStv’s Channel 293. “The Korea International Broadcasting Foundation is providing 3Ktv with children’s programing, which is most welcome as it gives us riveting content of international quality that our children can enjoy.
“We are hoping that there will be even more such cooperation between us going forward, especially as the 2nd Secretary and Consul of the Embassy of the Republic of Korea, Chungsung Lee, has already indicated his desire for us to deepen our relationship.
We are also quite excited about this because these will be joint productions where we will have an input into whatever production we come up with them,” an ecstatic Mvududu said. The Korean animation programmes — The Time Traveller, Duda Dada, Bread Barbershop, Super Z and Chichi Ping-Ping Fantasy Adventure — are English dubbed and will start airing on the station in its next season. Lee said he had been impressed by 3Ktv’s high quality programming, which had culminated in the partnership with the local broadcaster.
“When I recently attended the first anniversary of 3Ktv, I found that this broadcasting company has a lot of passion and potential to reach out to everyone out there. “We have always been close to 3Ktv and we are happy to be partnering with them in this journey of providing entertainment to their audiences, who will now get to experience Korean animation films,” Lee said.
Currently, the station runs two top-drawer Korean dramas — Ordinary You on Saturdays and Penthouse on Sundays. All this also comes as 3Ktv, which turned a year old in February this year, has bagged a string of awards and also registered many significant milestones over the past 14 months. The station was recently adjudged the best broadcaster in Zimbabwe on travel and tourism in 2022 by the Twalumba National Travel and Tourism Awards.
The awards were organised by the Travel, Tourism & Environment ministry in conjunction with the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) and the Tourism Business Council of Zimbabwe (TBCZ). The gong was in recognition of the station’s tireless efforts in covering and promoting travel and tourism in the country. 3Ktv’s much-followed news and current affairs programme, Vantage, was also recently named 2022’s outstanding television programme.
To top it all, Vantage host Guthrie Munyuki — who is also the Group Editor-in-Chief of Jester Media Services — was adjudged a ‘‘distinguished editor” for his leadership role at 3Ktv’s iconic sister media operations which include the inimitable Daily News, the Daily News on Sunday and The Financial Gazette, the country’s number one business publication.
According to the Zimbabwe All Media Products Survey (ZAMPS) for the first six months of 2022, the privately-owned television station was confirmed as the most watched Zimbabwean channel on satellite. In addition, the history-making channel continues to make significant strides on the digital terrestrial broad[1]casting front, as authorities slowly start to roll out the required set-top boxes.
The ZAMPS report also showed that 3Ktv was more popular overall in Zimbabwe than South African channels, which include those under the stable of the giant South African Broadcasting Corporation.
3Ktv was licensed in November 2020, after coming tops in a competitive and public bidding process. It went on to become the first licensed private commercial station to go on air in the country since television was first introduced in the then Southern Rhodesia in November 1960, after it started broadcasting 24/7 on February 28 last year.