IN THE latest notch in its belt for the country’s most watched television channel on satellite, 3Ktv, the station successfully broadcast live the spectacular and jam-packed Spirit Embassy crossover night at the Harare Hippodome on New Year’s Eve.
In doing so for a solid four hours without hitches, well into the wee hours of New Year’s Day, the less-than a year old family-viewing national channel underlined its well-earned status as Zimbabwe’s fastest growing, and arguably now also the country’s most influential television station. The absorbing Spirit Embassy Exodus Night with the widely-celebrated Prophet Uebert Angel came after the independent commercial television station also broadcast live last year’s jumbo OK Grand Challenge.
3Ktv, which has just entered its fourth season, is available both freeto-air and on DStv’s Channel 293. The station’s cheery head of sales and marketing, Shingirai Chirikuutsi, told the Daily News yesterday that this latest feat underlined the fact that the channel was now “a broadcaster of choice” for many of its business partners and other influential stakeholders.
“The station’s CV, as young as it is, is already very impressive, and the 2022 Exodus Night was certainly yet another huge notch on our belt. “Hosting this magical event underlined the channel’s growing allure to large and diverse sections of our nation who are increasingly viewing us as their broadcaster of choice.
We are very happy and grateful that we were chosen as the broadcasting partner for this mammoth gathering, which was attended by many foreign dignitaries. “Between 9pm on December 31, 2022 and 1 am on January 1, we were able to deliver a flawless spectacle as Spirit Embassy ushered tens of thousands of believers into the New Year,” the ecstatic Chirikuutsi said.
The coverage of the Exodus Night came hard on the heels of 3Ktv’s partnership with Latin America’s TeleSUR English TV, which involved broadcasting lively daily shows of last year’s Fifa World Cup. TeleSUR is a Latin American terrestrial and satellite news television network with a growing presents on the African continent and the islands of the Caribbean.
Speaking to the Daily News recently, Jester Media Services’ managing director for the Group’s Broadcasting Division, Zweli Sibanda, said 3Ktv remained well ahead of all the projected viewership and advertising figures. “3Ktv is enjoying phenomenal support from Zimbabweans, which is reflected in the latest Zimbabwe All Media & Products Survey (ZAMPS) report and the station’s all-round solid performance.
“The support that we are getting from both viewers and our business partners continues to surpass all our initial projections. “Not surprisingly, as a result, we are seeing more and more corporates and other key partners coming on board to showcase their products and services on the station,” Sibanda said.
According to the latest report of the non-partisan ZAMPS for the first six months of 2022, that was finalised when 3Ktv was just three months old, the privately-owned station is the most watched Zimbabwean channel on satellite. In addition, the history-making, free-to-air channel is making significant strides on the digital terrestrial broadcasting front, as authorities slowly start to roll out the required set top boxes.
The ZAMPS report also shows that 3Ktv is 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 air on February 28 last year, becoming the first licensed private commercial station to operate in the country since television was first introduced in the then Southern Rhodesia in November 1960. 3Ktv is a sister venture to Zimbabwe’s iconic and number one business publication, The Financial Gazette, as well as the inimitable Daily News and the Daily News On Sunday