by Thinus Ferreira
Are you the next Oprah? If you're tired of the "OpenUpTheIndustry" hashtag, South Africans can now be the change like Mahatma Ghandi said, and create their own television talk show with Cape Town TV.
CTV (DStv 263) is awaiting applications from people in and around Cape Town who are interested in having their own talk show, with the community TV station that will be using its own studio facilities in Observatory to offer a free training programme that will help people to create, finance and present their own TV talk show.
The closing date for applications for Cape Town TV's Production Development Programme (PDP) is 10 September 2021, with workshops that will be taking place on Saturdays at the TV station's studios and that will help successful candidates with the creation of a TV talk show, using CTV's studio, crew and production skills.
The workshops are free, but only people with successful applications will be permitted to attend. People must email a short proposal of their imagined show to Sisanda Henna at sisanda@capetowntv.org by 10 September, with a brief outline of your original TV talk show idea.
The proposal must explain the TV talk show's social relevance (why it's needed) and its concept (what it will be about), who it's for and the audience and why people would want to watch it (audience appeal).
TV talk show ideas should preferably be around and address social development issues, but any topic will be considered by merit, while shows done in Afrikaans and isiXhosa are preferred.
Participants must have expertise in their subject areas - you can't host or do a TV talk show but not know a lot about the broad topic or audience you want to discuss or represent.
The various TV talk shows, without studio audiences, will be tested in Cape Town TV's studios with a generic set and after 4 sessions in the open studio a show could get its own customised set and timeslot on the CTV schedule, and shows can potentially be sponsored or be done through donor funding.
Talk shows will have a maximum of two guests per episode, and could include one short, locally-filmed insert shot in Cape Town, depending on production capacity.
The weekly workshops will include sessions on developing programme concepts, programme research, scriptwriting, the production recording process and studio know-how, post-production, marketing and monetisation.
