Ashley Moyo
A BUMPER crowd is expected at today’s mega OK Grand Challenge at the Borrowdale Race Course in Harare, which will also be beamed live to the four corners of the country by fast-growing independent national commercial television station, 3Ktv.
Speaking to the Daily News yesterday, OK Zimbabwe group marketing director, Juliet Ziswa, said they were expecting about 30 000 people to attend the massive event.
She expressed OK Zimbabwe’s delight about the partnership with 3Ktv, adding that this also bore testimony to how much the retail giant valued all its customers around the country.
“We launched our OK Grand Challenge 2022 under the theme ‘Race To Happiness’ on April 8 and our customers have been experiencing massive discounts and savings since then.
“We are expecting close to 30 000 people at this pinnacle event of the OK Grand Challenge.
“Through our partnership with 3Ktv, all our customers will be able to watch the event and to follow proceedings live from the comfort of their homes,” Ziswa said.
Meanwhile, OK Zimbabwe will give away 47 cars to its lucky customers, including the grand prize of a Ford Ranger worth US$72 000, by the end of today.
On his part, 3Ktv general manager Emmanuel Nyamayedenga said the station was “ super excited” about its partnership with OK Zimbabwe.
He said the partnership marked the burgeoning television channel’s inaugural live broadcasting deal of this humongous size.
“This is a huge win-win business partnership for us that marks another major step forward for the station.
“We already have a very large audience on 3Ktv and this partnership will take our brand to even more people around the country.
“We will be broadcasting live to the whole nation direct from Borrowdale Race Course from 2pm until the end of the OK Grand Challenge,” Nyamayedenga said.
He also revealed that some of the television station’s afternoon programming, including its much followed news bulletin would be beamed live from Borrowdale Race Course.
3Ktv went live on February 28 this year, becoming the first licensed free-to-air private commercial station to operate in the country since television was first introduced in the then Southern Rhodesia in November 1960.
The history-making station was licensed in November 2020, having come tops following a credible and keenly-fought bidding and public hearing process.
The television station is a sister venture to Zimbabwe’s iconic and number one business newspaper, The Financial Gazette, as well as the inimitable Daily News and the Daily News On Sunday.
Zweli Sibanda, the Managing Director of Jester Media Services’ Broadcasting Division, the operators of 3Ktv, told the Daily News earlier this week that the station was “well ahead” of projections on all the key success factors which included its viewer numbers and advertising support.
“3Ktv continues to make waves, with many Zimbabweans especially remarking about the quality of the station’s programming and pictures since we became the first private station to launch in the country.
“The partnership with OK Zimbabwe is another feather in the cap for 3Ktv. To be trusted by a leading corporate like OK Zimbabwe on this massive event speaks volumes about the progress that we have made.
“This is the beginning of many such mega collaborations between 3Ktv and all our long-standing business partners,” Sibanda said.
The station’s powerhouse Head of Programming, Christina Nyirenda-Chimuka, had also told the Daily News last month that there was an enormous appetite for “excellent, independent and locally-produced television content in the country and among Zimbabweans in the diaspora” — such as was being provided by 3Ktv.
“Zimbabweans have been crying for competition and more quality local programming for quite some time, and they now have it in 3Ktv.
“Indeed, and with the tag line ‘The Best of Zimbabwe’, 3Ktv is meeting this hunger for riveting, 24/7 television programming.
“I’ve been around a bit in the media, and I’m convinced that our new baby is a game-changer in terms of the production, marketing and consumption of local TV products,” Nyirenda-Chimuka said.
“The support that we are receiving from both viewers and our business partners is most pleasing and well beyond what we expected to get so early into 3Ktv’s launch.
“The vast majority of both our free-to-air and satellite viewers have commended 3Ktv for the quality of its programming, pictures and sound.
“We do not take this amazing support from our stakeholders for granted, and we pledge to them that we will continue to aspire to do even better going forward,” Nyirenda-Chimuka added.
