Public Agenda (Accra)
Wisdom Dzidedi Donkor
16 November 2007
Accra — Mr. Magnus Rex Danquah, Chief Operations Officer (COO), LOC on Thursday told the members of the press at a media seminar that the public should desist from accusing the committee of not awarding the broadcasting right of Ghana 2008 to any Ghanaian TV station.
According to Mr. Danquah his outfit had given all the opportunities to all local TV stations but they refused to grab the opportunity and lost it to Sportfive, a leading European Sports Marketing Agency based in France.
He explained that the LOC on several occasions approached all the six TV stations including GTV, Sky TV, Metro TV, TV Africa and Net2 TV to ascertain their capabilities of managing the broadcasting right of Ghana 2008 but realized that none of them was fit enough to meet the task. He said before any TV station could meet the standard they needed modern broadcasting facilities, including at least 40 TV cameras.
The COO further stated that he personally went to meet the board of Governors for GBC five years ago to inform them to prepare towards the event ahead to meet the standard but they refused to take his advice. "If I have done all these without charging consultation fee and you refused to listen, then there is no need accusing me" he said. "If you can't see the light, don't blame anybody, it is your own blindness", he pointed out.
He noted that after all the Ghanaian TV stations could not meet the standard, they opened the bid two years ago to international organizations and Sportfive came up as the qualified bidder. According to him the event needed a quality work done to give it a world class standard and with the track record of Sportfive he has confidence in them that they will perform.
Sportfive he said is entitled to international media right whereas the LOC is entitled to broadcast right locally. He however, noted that all media houses might not be given accreditation, as that will mean opening a free gate since the number of the press would be too huge.
The accreditation he explained will be given on quota basis and this will depend on the team playing at a time. He also elaborated that preference will be given to the media from the host nation, but was quick to add that preference will also be given to the press of the countries playing before that of other countries are considered.
With regards to the print media, the number of days a newspaper comes out in a week or month will be considered for accreditation and cautioned broadcast houses to refrain from any fraudulent means of broadcasting to any stations outside Ghana.
The President of the Ghana Journalist Association, Mr. Ransford Tetteh on his part expressed confidence in the local media to meet the challenges of feeding the public with all the needed information during the event.
To him the local media has a big task despite the presence of the international media. He therefore challenged the press, especially sports journalist to be professional.
He pointed out that the fast growth of every society depends so much on the role of the media and sport is not left out. This role he said if not played well can turn into a tragedy. He also cautioned local commentators to be wary of embellishment in the name creativity as some of such descriptions have the tendency of creating confusion.
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