Drought of Malawi soaps
Lack of funding has haunted filmmaking in Malawi and television production has not been spared either.
The country’s locally produced soap operas, Mama’s Restaurant andSweep, could not be sustained due to lack of funding, leaving a vacuum in the soap opera business.
Yet, some countries have soap operas which have been sustained for up to 20 years. South Africa, for instance, has soaps such as Generations, Isidingo and Muvhango, which beam on South African State broadcaster, SABC.
One of the reasons the South African soaps have survived the test of time is that they were specially commissioned by SABC.
In most scenarios, a producer pitches an idea to the broadcaster and when the broadcaster likes the idea, they commission it by giving the finance for the production of the soap. The broadcaster in turn owns the rights of the programme, but the intellectual property still remains with the producer.
Producer of Mama’s Restaurant, the first soap opera in Malawi, Thom Chibambo, said countries such as South Africa are able to commission for production of soaps because they have the capacity to do so. He, however, doubted whether MBC has the capacity to run such a production as it is expensive.
As Chibambo would have it, producers in other countries get support from the corporate world through product placement, which involves a company supplying its products to film and TV companies to be used in the shows.
Chibambo, however, said most Malawian business executives do not understand the concept.
“Most business executives are less willing to invest in a movie industry because they take it as a waste of money rather than an investment,” he says,
He, however, said producers cannot base soap funding on product placement alone, but should rather start off the project with their own funds before finding other sponsors.
A renowned Malawian producer based in South Africa, Kalumbu Kapisa, said product placement is constantly being used worldwide to fund TV and film production.
“Most broadcasters don’t have enough funds for commissioning such productions and the money generated from advertisers helps to pay for better talent, sets and overall improvements on the production quality,” said Kapisa.
Malawian Broadcasting Corporation’s MBC TV opts to beam foreign soaps instead of commissioning film makers to locally produce soaps.
MBC public relations officer Ruth Gama said although MBC TV prefers to acquire its programmes from the local market, it has been forced to source some of its programes elsewhere because TV production and the filmmaking industries are not fully developed in the country.
“MBC would like to partner with any production outfit that can be commissioned to provide local programming in various genres so as to portray Malawi in its programming” said Gama.
She said the cost of royalties is always dependent on the negotiated runs and the age of the programme.
“Some of our programmes have been negotiated on barter terms for airtime due to resource constraints,” she said.
Gama urged Malawian filmmakers to come forward with their productions as it is in the interest of the station to promote local content.
Now that MBC TV is on satellite, it is yet to be seen whether local filmmakers will dare venture into the capital intensive business of producing soaps.
