Mmegi/The Reporter (Gaborone)
Monkagedi Gaotlhobogwe
3 November 2009
Botswana Musicians Union (BOMU) Awards coordinators say they knew about the goof that resulted in the wrong song being awarded the Song of the Year. Banjo Mosele's hit, Ntsa E Jele Ntsanyana was declared the Song of the Year amid ululation during the BOMU awards ceremony held at the Gaborone International Convention Centre (GICC) on Saturday night.
However, it was the next day during the 7pm Botswana Television (Btv) News Bulletin that BOMU president, Sello Socca Moruakgomo, announced that there had been a mix-up, hence a wrong announcement was made. Moruakgomo said the rightful winner of the Song of the Year award was Khudu, by Culture Spears, while Banjo Mosele's award was for Best DVD, which had been presented to Culture Spears the previous night.
Interviewed yesterday why they took more than 12 hours to make the correction, Moruakgomo explained that they in fact knew about the mistake as soon as the announcement was made on stage. Why was it not immediately rectified? Moruakgomo says they could not correct it on stage because it was a live television event. "You had to let it pass so that you did not disturb the flow of the shooting.
You just can't do it (the live correction). It would have interrupted the flow of the live television show," Moruakgomo said in a phone interview.
According to the BOMU president, the results were mixed up back stage, but he did not explain how. "We realised there was a mistake the moment it was announced, but we could not do anything then because it was a live broadcast. We just said we would correct the mistake later. The judges had already passed the information on to us; so we knew who the real winners were," Moruakgomo said.
Interestingly though, a 30-minute break followed after Culture Spears received their Best DVD award. One would have thought the coordinators of the event would have used that ample time to announce when live broadcast resumes that the award actually is for Mosele and not Culture Spears.
There were also further two performances by Malombo and Eugene Jackson, as well as a slot reserved for performance by the winners of the Song of the Year gong, which could have been used to pass the message over to the MC or the host of the show to announce the correction live on TV.
However Btv General Manager Molefhe Sejoe said, " Yes, making corrections in the middle of a live arts performance is not much of a good idea. It spoils it."
When asked why the corrections could not be made in between the breaks and performances, Sejoe answered via sms: "well, I guess they had to find the best way to deal with it."
Later a credible source at Btv told Showbiz that the exact reason why the corrections could not be made during the live broadcast of the awards was that BOMU decided to make the corrections late when the live broadcast schedule had ended. The source said BOMU delayed in approaching the show director.
The source said, had BOMU reacted on time to the error, there is no doubt the correction would have been aired live on Btv the same night.
Meanwhile, Culture Spears' Kabelo Mogwe refused to comment on the goof when contacted, referring any media enquiries to BOMU awards coordinators.
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