A long long time ago in a far away place called Ghana there was only one TV station. It was the centre of all the entertainment scene in Ghana. All who had TV watched it and those who had no TV stood behind peoples dirty unwashed window sieves to watch it.

TV transmission started at 5pm on weekdays and ended at somewhere midnight when the Saturday movie ended. On weekends transmission started at 8 ended around noon (probably for the engineers at GBC to break for a bowl of afternoon fufu) and resumed at 4pm.

Transmission began with an announcer in a neat Ghana kaba or cloth outlining the program for the day. Sometimes if you were lucky you would witness someone hand over something to the announcer or even try saying something despite the fact that transmission is live. It was a ‘’real’’ reality show.. On such warm weekend mornings, GBC began their shows with a cartoon –which usually was ‘’GForce’’-. You watched it whether you liked it or not. It was the same thing every morning. Usually GBC never completed it and they repeated the same episode over and over every morning. Anyway since we had no option we all watched it and did what kids do.

Also on the menu were other good children programs.Something we don’t have now with the current long hours of transmission and lots of TV stations on the airwaves. In those days we had Hobby Time on weekdays (Tuesdays I think). On hobby time I learnt a lot of do it your self stuff like painting, making X’mas decorations and simple musical instruments.

On Mondays there was Tina Moses and her nice and impeccable English. Not slanging but still nice to listen to (even if one only understood half of what she was saying)

Other days Uncle George with his exuberant and animated shouts of Kyekyekule (at which point hundreds of Ghanaian children wherever they were responded with ‘’kyekyeekofinsa yeeaahhhh’’) was on TV. At least though the period of transmission was short there were programs for children everyday- made for Ghanaians by Ghanaians and we enjoyed it.

Now roll forward 10 years on and the situation is different. All the time slots on TV is now commercialised. Musicians pay TV stations to show their music. Most of the time, children are forced to watch some gospel musician who is not going to sell any album except what was sold at church during the launch of the album.

After the payoola musicians come a series of dubbed mexican soaps -morning ,noon and night. I have no problem with soaps and paying musicians who are trying to earn a living. But children at a certain age require a different sort of entertainment. Programs to make them dream, use their imagination or watch other school kids on kyekyekule. At the age of 7 or 8 what a mexican playboy on TV –say Lucio says to his girlfriends mothers sister holds no interest to a child whatsoever.

What sort of children do we want to raise up in Ghana? We might not feel the effects now, maybe 10 years from now when the current 7 year olds turn 17 and begin singing gospel; or become Ghanaian mexicans then we would have start to do something.

As usual being Ghanaians, it would be all talk and no action. So you know what, if you cant afford Multichoice just look for the biggest knob on the TV and press it. If you cant find the knob pull the plug from the socket, get a book for your child and have fun!

Yours Nii Ayi