We are not blinded by our affiliations: Supa Mandiwanzira

Zimbabwe’s first privately owned  commercial radio station ZiFM Stereo turned 10 years old in August this year.

Our journalist Mona-Lisa Dube (MD)  caught up with the founder of ZiFM Stereo, Supa Mandiwanzira (SM) (pictured) to find out more about the journey and the plans .

Mandiwanzira also spoke about  the successes and challenges and how he enjoyed combining his passion as a journalist and his entrepreneurship skills which saw the birth of ZiFM Stereo a decade ago.

Below  are excerpts of the interview.

MD: Congratulations on the 10th anniversary of ZiFM Stereo

SM: You say congratulations to me but I think the congratulations are for the whole ZiFM family. We owe it to the entire team that was behind the scenes when we went on air on the 15th of August 10 years ago.

We owe it to our listeners in Zimbabwe and abroad, our friends who lend us money to start the station, to the staff that worked tirelessly when we started even without salaries at the beginning. So to all our stakeholders I say congratulations. Your baby is ten years old today.

MD: Can you walk us through the journey?

SM: A lot of work went into it. As you would know my training is in journalism. I studied media at Harare Polytechnic and I went on to study in the United Kingdom where I did my masters in International Journalism at City University majoring in Economic and Financial reporting.

So I was always interested in developing myself in that field but I also looked at myself as an entrepreneur. And I cherished the moment that Zimbabwe would open up the airwaves for private players to come into play. And the moment came more than 10years ago.

The Broadcasting Authorities of Zimbabwe (BAZ) sent out an advert for all those interested in radio broadcasting to apply for licenses.

One of the things I realized was that I did not have sufficient insights to understand how to set up a business plan that would win the hearts of those at BAZ.

So I went to South Africa and researched some of the big names in the media industry. I landed at KPMG South  Africa and found a gentleman called  Quinton Green who was the Head of Media and Advisory Services and had run the SABC at some point. So I hired them in order to put together a winning document.

MD: By engaging experts in South Africa, does it suggest  we don’t have the right people locally that can assist in building a viable media house?

SM: I think that you will understand that we had a monopoly of ZBC in the broadcasting sector. Therefore, the only experience you would know, or the only experienced people  one would engage were from the national broadcaster.

And I understood that the market wanted something different from ZBC. So I had to look for another flavor from a different country in terms of how to package a business plan and how to package a broadcasting channel that would excite the audiences.

It was also to understand that our exposure in terms of radio broadcasting was limited, and therefore we needed to go into a market that was competitive with multiple channels.

When we engaged with (Quinton) Green, we spent hours, weekends at his house. He was very kind. We paid for it.

However, he went beyond the call of duty, putting together a winning document.

When it came to the day of presenting, we flew him in from South Africa. So we did the presentation together.

MD: When the station started off, you brought in celebrities, the likes of Cindy Munyavi, Plaxedes Wenyika and  Sani Makhalima , among many others,  What was your thought process in that?

SM: What I realised was we needed to harness the skill and talent available in the country. We also needed to bring in people who already had their names established but I didn’t want to pick the voices  that we had heard on Radio 3. I was more interested in identifying new talent or taking talent that had never been thought of as radio talent and putting them on radio. We however brought in a few veterans including Kimble Rogers  and TK. We needed them for their experience, and we needed to give confidence to the other guys who were in. And then we were very lucky in terms of programming and training, to also bring in Tony Friday.  He had experience in the region. We brought in the celebrities so that the audiences would be like, oh, let’s tune into this station where Cindy is a presenter. That was the idea.

MD: How did you bankroll ZiFm?

SM: This was one of our biggest challenges. When we got the license, we went to the local banks. Nobody was willing to lend us any money. We didn’t have any significant assets. Prior, I was running a production company called Mighty Movies and that was about it. And the kind of money we needed to set up ran into millions of US dollars. So it was very difficult to convince the banks. We were the  first ones to be given the document by BAZ. So, our license number is 0001. But we were behind our colleagues at Star FM in setting up because Star FM is owned by a big company listed on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange. Funding wasn’t difficult for them.

MD: So you were to some extent a start-up?

SM: We were pretty much a startup. There were  a couple of people we identified who would make a huge difference to this station in terms of being talented on air.

But, it took us some time before we could get funding. That’s why we were late going on air.

Star FM was ahead of us, and they were already starting. They then targeted some of the people we wanted to hire. I remember I was in Las Vegas at the National Association of Broadcasters forum, where we were attending and looking at the various options for equipment. And I received a call from one of the guys we had targeted to say, my brother, I’m really sorry, but I’ve been offered something by Star FM and he jumped ship. Another  one of our  guys who was approached was TK. And they said  we want you on our side, Supa  haana chinhu (doesn’t have anything) , what are you waiting for? And TK’s response to those guys was, “well, if he doesn’t have anything, he now has me, so I’m his asset”.

MD: And you still with him to this day!

SM: I still have him to this day. And I’m so grateful for that kind of loyalty.

So, I met a gentleman from South Africa.He was doing a lot of business in this country, selling mining spares and other things. He was owed a lot of money in Zimbabwe, and he hadn’t been paid.

He was told about my story, and he’s a man who believes in God. And he said, I’d love to support you because I have a lot of money sitting which these companies are not paying. So I’m willing to give some of that money because it’s in local currency anyway, a part of it.

So he gave us a loan to get our equipment in. So when we were looking for quotations for equipment, we were getting expensive quotations. I started searching on the Internet. I realized there’s a big event that happens annually in Las Vegas which brings together all the broadcasters globally and  all the broadcast equipment manufacturers. And I decided that we needed to go there.

So this was happening around February of 2012.

So I said to Susan Makore, one of the founding CEOs here, and our chief engineer  Artwell Sithole, we were going to Las Vegas and find who can supply us equipment cheaper than we were being quoted.

And true to that prediction, we found the companies that were quoting us. We found them exhibiting there. We found them selling the same equipment they were quoting us, at 50% of the price. In fact, at less than 50% . That’s when we realized that Africa suffers from this situation where it’s overpriced in anything. We were being quoted about US$500 000 for studios but we ended up paying about US$250 000 because we decided to go to Las Vegas.

MD: So at what stage did ZiFM Stereo start being profitable?

SM: As we were preparing to go on air , we hired another South African expert who had run some radio stations to train our guys. He told us  it  would take about three years to recover the money put in to start the radio station and start making some profit.

We invited him one year later and he was surprised that we were doing much better than he had anticipated as we were already starting to see some profits. It wasn’t because we were the brightest  but we just had a committed team. We had about four months with no salaries because we just didn’t have the money but everyone turned up for work.

Also we decided to target small to medium enterprises for advertising as it took a while for the big corporates to believe in us. And that’s how we started gaining momentum.

MD: If you were not a  member of ZANU-PF and  legislator for Nyanga South , do you think you would have been  awarded the license for ZiFM?

SM: Absolutely!

First of all, this is my passion. This is what I trained for. I studied at Harare Polytechnic. I was offered a scholarship by the British Council to further my education in the UK. I worked for the ZBC, worked for The Manica Post and the Business Herald. I worked for the SABC. I worked for Aljazeera and the BBC. I do not know anybody else who has my credentials who I was competing with who didn’t get the license. They also didn’t have a bankable, winning document prepared by an organization well known globally for their media advisory services like we did with KPMG. So I can state categorically that I did not get this license because I am connected to Zanu-PF.

We were competing with very well connected people within Zanu-PF. And we have to give credit to BAZ. They gave us the license and 10 years later we are still in business and we have created hundreds of jobs. We have changed the entire music industry. We have also taken dancehall to a totally new level in this country.

When we started there were a lot of misgivings about how we got the license mostly because Iam a member of Zanu-PF. My response is always that even if you are Zanu-PF you are also entitled to opportunities.

I got this on total merit and what do I have to prove that? The station has 10 years of existence .Iam sure if I had gotten it as a political gift it would have died by now.

MD: So what is your current role at ZiFM Stereo?

SM: My role is just to provide guidance from a distance. I believe that I have the passion and the vision. So I come back here and there just to pass on that passion and vision to the team that is ably running things here to make sure we stay the course so that we build not only a local business but a global enterprise.

MD: So to what extent does your “coming back here and there” affect the editorial policy of the station considering your political affiliations?

SM: Again I want to refer you to the last 10 years. When we got the license the perception was “this is an extension of ZBC, they are going to be pushing Zanu-PF propaganda.”

We are a commercial radio station. We are driven by commercial interests and nothing else. So what goes on the station is what we believe our audiences want to hear. We are not blinded by our affiliations. We have a very young workforce here. The majority of them when I interact with them at a personal level they do not support my political party.Even if I try to convince  them they are not convinced by my explanations and it’s fine because Zanu-PF brought democracy in this country and therefore it must allow that other parties may exist.

The same principle applies here. There are many people who work here who I don’t believe if they lived in Nyanga South they would vote for me. But they still have a job here. I believe in their own conscience. They know that if they are being pushed towards a political agenda they  would leave. We have not had that problem because we believe in objectivity and fairness and balance in what we do.

The bulk of what we do is not editorially driven anyway, it’s entertainment driven. So we play all kinds of music. We have presenters from all kinds of backgrounds.

Our news is anything and everything which our editors believe is of interest to the Zimbabwean audiences locally and in the diaspora because we also have a huge following from there.

MD: Your thoughts on ZiFM Stereo’s News and Current Affairs?

SM: I would say that to a greater extent we try to ensure that there is balance and that both sides are represented. We let the people decide on who is right or who is wrong.

MD: How do you respond to critics that argue ZiFM is not a private  entity because the founder is a member of the ruling party?

SM: I think the unfortunate thing we have done in this country is to elevate politics to a level that it should never be elevated to. We expect so much out of politics when we shouldn’t be. The point is it is a private station. I don’t use public funds. I didn’t use any  public funds in setting up the station. We don’t get grants from the government. The license fee you pay for your radio does not come to us, it goes to the national broadcaster.  We do not use any taxpayers money. We run as a commercial station. So we are private in that regard.

MD: There is a perception that ZiFm standards have gone down in terms of the quality of air. We have seen a number of names that were with the station leaving. What’s going on?

SM: I think what happens is when you run a race of 10 years you get a lot of fatigue along the way, people get tired, people begin to worry about their future and wonder how they can be better and they also look at the economic environment and ask themselves if they will be able to build houses and look after their families in this kind of situation. So you are right, a number of people have left. But I’ll tell you the bulk of the people have left to go to South Africa, some have gone to the USA and some are looking for greener pastures outside our country. And a big number of people who have left were headhunted by some of the bigger media house in this country. I’ll tell you there was a media house that came here to offer everyone a job because they were starting a TV station. And this is because we have a knack for identifying talent. We do not recycle talent. We do not pick people from other media houses. We pick random people and make them superstars.

MD: What should stakeholders expect in the  next 10 years?

SM: For specifics you might want to ask the ones running the show at ZiFM Stereo. But, for the bigger picture we are alive to the transformation of radio. Radio is now available online so our content is going to separate from all the other platforms. We are going to be more content driven, more people driven because people want to be associated with entities or platforms where they are a part of.

So, there will be a lot of content creation pushed not only through the radio but also through social media. The last 10 years have been good where we did make some mistakes. But the next 10 years will be full of growth and momentum doing things bigger and better than we have done in the past.