By Vivienne Adjorkor Laryea
Accra – 12 December, 2018.
Pre-Vas TV started test transmission on 3 October, 2018.
Since then, it has not looked back.
The station’s premises at Teshie First Junction have become a buzzing with activity by day and resolving palavers at night.
On 4 December, the news team went on the road to hit one more milestone, to populate the website with stories…what you are reading now.
‘So are we going to walk all the way,’ we the three ladies asked our acting head of news.
He only kept rapping us along.
The December heat was unbearable at about 28 DEGREES CELSIUS and my feet was hurting.
My shoes were too tight….not suitable for a journalistic walk to cover a story.
It was only 11:30 am. I had advocated for a taxi and lost the vote.
We didn’t even know where we were going so what’s the point; Accra directions are not reliable.
Taxi drivers working around Teshie First Junction will squeeze their December sales from you if you keep stopping and asking for directions from commuters.
‘There’s a computer shop here,’ I buzzed. O yes, our walk was soon over.
‘We’ve walked for fifteen minutes,’ Akosua looked at her watch.
Our head of news opened the door and we entered.
After the necessary pleasantries, we sat down to business as Diana kept receiving phone calls to give directions to Zumah who was on a chase after us.
Godwin Ashong, the founder/director of Kuulchat Media, the website developer really is the very embodiment of the word cool.
He walked us through how to upload content onto the website using a user name and a password.
He spent some time on the empty SCHEDULE menu and we dwelt a lot on how to load schedules and make changes in programming.
Our head was interested in how the programme schedule could be downloaded for various purposes.
Date and time of publishing a story online and all other little details were sorted out.
The video upload features were a key concern for the sake of our viewers who may not have time to watch us on air.
The smartphone features came up for a serious discussion and upgrades were negotiated.
‘Are you kidding me; a third of videos are watched through Facebook and other Social Media,’ Isaac Ato Mensah, our acting head of news has always maintained.
It was the same attitude he had towards the inability of the video function to work and the problems with the smartphone version.
Starting a TV station is no easy job.
‘Make sure they have the password,’ said Sylvanus Amartey, our director.
That was all we needed.
The director has put in all he could and he now expects results.
The heat and the pressure is on.
We had met the director at 10.40 am to seek access to the website to do our own thing and had secured his blessing.
There had to be several negotiations to reassign work in order to free us to work on the website project.
Dear Cherished Reader, if you can read this, then we have to thank Jehovah God for having brought Pre-Vas TV this far.
Just wondering…………is there anything like a test transmission for a website?
I mean are readers more forgiving of mistakes on a website whether new or old?
Yes! We just did it……www.prevastv.com has published its first story online. And it came from me!
Feedback; Vivienne Laryea ([email protected])
Editorial Consultants; Writers and Shakespeares Ghana Limited (www.writersghana.com).
An earlier version of this article was published on 4 December 2018 on www.prevastv.com.
Writers and Shakespeares Ghana Limited exists to be a moral and intellectual guide to the best practice of PR and integrated communications around the world, beginning with Ghana.