Capital FM presenter Flavia Tumusiime is among a new bunch of Channel O VJ’s whose brief is to give viewers a peek at the different cultures and spaces within Africa. They will also be required to show how African music and musicians are reshaping the entertainment arena and standing up for recognition. The VJs will be going behind-the-scenes and giving viewers a wider picture of what goes on in the music and entertainment world that is rapidly growing in Africa as well as internationally. Viewers can look forward to coverage of events like countries’ Independence Day celebrations, interviews of who’s who of the African entertainment circuit , red carpet events and vox-pops of the man/ woman on the street about the fast-growing African musical talent.

Flavia, a 23-year old university graduate is also the current host of the Guinness Football Challenge. “My passion is in television, it’s where I feel my best,” says Flavia who cut her screen teeth as a presenter on WBS TV’s Teens Club. Whereas her most of her contemporaries at the time disappeared into the sunset, Flavia went on to try her hand at radio and hosts the weekday mid-morning show from 10am to 3pm on 91.3 Capital FM. She bounced back on TV as a replacement for Karitas Karisimbi on the lifestyle show K-Files (WBS TV, Wednesdays 8.30pm) when the show’s host took maternity leave. Flavia’s other new Channel O peers are Nigeria’s Edun ‘Denrele’ Olufemi (28)- host of Glo Naija Sings (28), Tanzania’s Jokate Mwegelo- a model and film actress, Kenya’s Joey Muthengi (26)- a radio presenter and TV actress, Ghana’s Stefen ‘J.Town’ Menson (27)- a recording artist and South Africa’s Maya Wegerif (19)- an intern at Channel O.

Channel O Africa’s [Ugandan-born] Manager, Leslie ‘Lee’ Kasumba says choosing this young talent will see Channel O further embracing the music loving population within the continent. “Each one of these VJ’s is awesome in their own right. Not only do they have a fundamental love for their country and music from their countries too. They also have a love for what is happening around them and can see African Urban music in the global space, which is exactly what Channel O Africa is about. They are passionate, hardworking individuals and as a team, they will take Channel O Africa to new levels,” says Kasumba.

Channel O launched as a 24-hour music outlet in 1997 but has of late lost some of its shine to competitors like MTV base and regional copycats like EATV and Sound City that mostly mostly East African and Nigerian hits respectively. It had thinned out presenter-format shows preferring to play [country and genre-specific] music back-to-back. The channel’s VJ announcement could be a desperate attempt at wooing back continental viewers who had shunned it for favouring music video works from one country.

e.tv Africa’s Scandal! (Monday to Thursday 8.30pm) continues to offer telenovela-phobes reasons to believe in television that entertains, educates and informs. One of the current storylines is quite a hair-raiser. An HIV infected mother is being bullied into selling her ARVs to drug addictswho then powder the pills into a concoction called “whoonga”. Now that is so low we guys, notorious for for re-exporting the life extending drugs and swindling Global Fund monies are yet to sink to. The mother is now being being blackmailed with the loss of her baby if her ARV supply to the drug dealers stops. The plot does not get any worse than “whoonga” addicts infecting themselves with HIV in order to make it on the list of people receiving freebie ARVs. The reprieve is that the dedicated journos at the now rag-turned serious Scandal! are sleuthing the issue Hopefully, the bad guys will get their due, perhaps a jail term with the keys thrown in the sea.

Illegal immigration is also the focus in another Scandal! subplot. As Africa’s biggest economy, South Africa continues to inadvertently attract illegals who have sadly been on the receiving end of neo-apartheid vices like the infamous xenophobic attacks. You have to hand it to the villainious Daniel Nyati (played by Generation’s Archie Moroka) for fishing an opportunity to advance his own interests a la offering pro bono legal counsel to desperate illegals. His team of paralegals are final year university law students wishing to improve their GPAs. But being the shrewd fellow he is, Nyati has offered the illegals a quid pro quo. In exchange for the legal counsel, they have to offer their labour for a building project he says will provide a subsidised roof over their heads. Not strange from a honey-tongued man that believes decent accommodation is a basic human right.

Muti is South African parlance for witchcraft. I hate that it is now a principal storyline in the high production values TV series Scandal! (e.tv Africa, Monday to Thursday 8.30pm). But I liked the subtle way in which the issue of the criminality in accusing someone of using practising witchcraft was written into the story. I still hate that it is taking attention away from a more pressing matter, the one about a gagged journalist; after-effects of newsroom politics in which a serious but loss making newspaper (The Voice) gets “killed” while a sensational rag (Scandal!) is nourished.

You have to hand it to the sidelined Jacques’ ingenuity in how he goes about spiting his dominatrix boss Donna (she refused to grant him a column on the ongoing rugby World Cup) in the revamped Scandal!. He shoots a video revealing a taped mouth and bound hands. A tickertape message runs across the screen highlighting his plight. Boss lady summons him and luckily for him, his immediate editorial supervisors have his back.

Fact is our own The Hostel could garnish those lame limes recited by its avalanche of talking blonde heads with a couple of issue-driven storylines. There was more laying down the law on Rhythm City (e.tv Africa weekdays 7.30pm, omnibus Saturday 10.30am). Toyi-toyi is SA vernacular for protesting, demonstrating, et al and trust the old wives club to wield banners to protest the Kilowatt hangout’s “tight T-shirt” night. With their husbands emptying their wallets at the bosoms of the ravishing bar lady Niki, a protest seemed very much in order, well until Suffo reminded the posse of chanting women to get a permit first. And here we were thinking Kayihura’s boys were overstepping what should be a constitutional right!

Would the more scientifically accepted hypnosis qualify as muti? There was relief in the Le Reoux household on Isidingo (ITV weekdays 7.30pm, omnibuses Saturday 11pm & Sunday 10am) when Marlien, the family matriarch, came out of her mute self to say a couple of coherent sentences. The noose is tightening around resident femme fatal Cherel [de Villiers Haines Le Roux]’s neck, that’s if daughter Sophia can beat her conniving step-mom to finding the suicide note her mother Marlien wrote (that she hid it in a Bible may explain her protracted healing).

In other Isidingo news, the hostage crisis at top cop Priyah’s station rekindled the flame with ex (and father to her child Hiranya) Frank. Hubby Rajesh (the iron clad boss at On TV!) had better eat his carrots if he still cannot read the divorce writing on the wall. There may be a good moral to Rajesh/Priyah being a two-income household but that may not make up for the romantic inconvenience that is their marriage of convenience.