Ghana’s Most Beautiful, 10 Years and still counting
Ghana’s Most Beautiful (let’s call it GMB from here on) was created and started to air the same year I got married.
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Which means that none of my children was born when it started. My daughter who is nine has grown to love the show so much she can’t go a Sunday without it when it’s in season.
Two weeks ago, the children had gone to my sister’s to spend the holiday and when they came back the first thing I asked was if she was able to watch GMB to which she answered in the affirmative. I would be surprised if she did not.
Last Sunday, I wasn’t at home when the show started and when I got home at about 9pm, she was the only one in the living room. The television was on and GMB was showing but the only audience was asleep in the chair. I woke her up to sleep but we had to argue a bit before she would understand that she was sleepy and needed to go to bed.
Last Tuesday, when KKD, Anita Erskine and myself were on George Quaye’s Pundits on GhOne TV, to talk about content, we underscored the fact that the most strategic content creators do not only look at the now, but how their content would be fluid enough to still appeal to people down the line five or 10 years after they have been created.
If my daughter who was not born when the show started has grown so much into it and she is only nine, then it means the creators have chalked a mighty success with their content and its relevance over time is testimony to this fact.
GMB has been one of TV3’s most successful reality shows, if not the most successful. Mentor, which started about the same period as GMB has had its day and it’s no more (or hasn’t been done for a while) just as other reality shows the station has tried: Looking for Love, Dance Fever, etc.
It is true that some of its contestants have over the years been engulfed in some controversies. There’ve been issues the station has to answer to on radio, there’s been time they had to dethrone a winner and many such by-issues that one way or the other threatened to plague the show and the station. Through all these, the show has remained one of the most anticipated and watched television reality shows in Ghana over the years.
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Perhaps, the one thing that gets many glued to this show may not necessary be that it has a wow effect, but the fact that it is steeped in culture and everything the typical Ghanaian represents.
Over the years, people who get glued to this show would know things about other regions that they probably would never have known if they sat in a four-walled classroom for yonks.
GMB teaches the viewer about the history, the culture and to an extent the geography of all the 10 regions of Ghana.
At the beginning when TV3 was not covering the entire country, there were still ways by which the message from those regions that did not receive the signals could get it through and gradually they go to all regions.
Over the years, GMB has produced winners from all over. I don’t remember all the winners exactly, (because let’s face it, if it wasn’t my wife and now my daughter, I was never one to sit and watch GMB hence I don’t know) but I can be sure that even if it is not every single region winning, its spread has percolated well over the last nine episodes.
There is one thing also that TV3 has done remarkably well with GMB that need mention and commendation. The extra production they give to the show, the going to contestants’ hometown to meet with their people or present goodies from sponsors, etc. gives the station a good mark for thinking through the content and getting all angles sorted.
Sammy Adanu and his team need to be commended for, at least the production value to the station and extra mileage to advertisers.
There have been some technical challenges over the years, but of course you cannot have a live show of this magnitude and not have a few, or even many, technical challenges once in a while. It comes with the terrain. But I think they have moved up the learning curve…errrm…a bit. I have some challenges I will talk about for them to look at, if they so wish, towards the end of this piece.
This year’s season is epochal. Epochal because it marks the 10th year and the tenth episode since the series begun. The production house, Adesa We Productions, which took over all production related issues from TV3 has left no stone unturned in their effort to make the tenth anniversary edition a memorable one.
Heck they have even moved out of the studio to produce the show from the atrium of the World Trade Centre in Accra. That is supposed to add some colour, panache and a dash of razzmatazz to the whole caboodle (to borrow from Dan Afari-Yeboah).
To be honest, I feel they should have remained in the studio as that brings out a better production quality, but of course that’s a choice for them.
Suffice it to say that the fact that they cannot control the sound and the lights look too kaleidoscopic doesn’t help much.
The 10 ladies who are contesting to be the 10th Ghana’s Most Beautiful woman are Akos, who is a 25-year -old student representing the Eastern Region, Naa is a 24-year-old,formerly Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ) represneting Greater Accra Region and Badu 23, also formerly of Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ) with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) representing the Ashanti Region.
Others are Kafui, who a 20-year-old graduate of the University of Ghana, Legon is representing the Volta Region, Yaba is a 21-year-old student of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) is representing the Western Region and Alaya is a 25-year old native of Bolgatanga the Upper East Region
The rest are Demy who is a 25-year-old graduate of the University of Development Studies representing the Upper West Region, Ama who is a 23-year-old native of Techiman representing the Brong Ahafo Region, Efua is a 23-year-old student of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) representing the Central Region and Hiba a 22-year-old graduate of the Institute of Commercial Management, UK representing the Northern Region.
My two challenges: let the hosts Gideon and Emefa (is it) read their LPMs form a prompter or something not nice how it’s been done for 10 years and can we top the overelaboration of alcoholic beverage endorsement? The time should tell you. And oh, kudos for closing on time this season.
@TheGHMediaGuru