By Ettione Ferreira
The EOBM (Essentials of Broadcast Management) course brought participants from as far as Ethiopia to explore management in broadcast media. The course was held at the Sol Plaatje Institute from 20 to 24 June 2016.
Lebogang Kotsi, executive producer and assistant music compiler at Ofm in Bloemfontein, joined the course for professional development. The highlight for him was advertising and sales, “I never really paid attention to it before,” he says. Kotsi started his career at a campus radio station during his studies towards a journalism and media studies degree. After his first job as a journalist intern, he started at Ofm in 2012 as a night time producer and later on went onto the breakfast show until getting promoted to his current position.
Learning about the new trends in the media industry is part of the structure of the EOBM course to keep it updated with the current digital environment. Hardin Gurupira, production manager at Ibex Solutions, felt that this was one of the most important parts of the course for him, he says, “the course has been eye-opening for me, showing something new to improve.” Gurupira was the studio manager for Standard Global Communications in 2012 and later became head of production at Star FM where he was, “responsible for designing and upholding of the sound design of the station as well as monitoring all on air personalities,” he says. In 2015 he joined Ibex Solutions for the position he currently holds.
The leadership and ethics course showed a positive response from participants as some learned about management skills for the first time. “I can better myself as manager…I learned a lot of aspects about my work,” Kabelo Mosothoane says about the course. This was the first managerial course Mosothoane took since joining management. Mosothoane started at Radio Lesotho in 2003 as news reader and later sports producer and presenter. He was later promoted to head of programmes which is the position he holds today.
Etsegenet Mekuria came all the way from Ethiopia to do the EOBM course. Mekuria finished her under graduate studies at Addis Ababa 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网 in Management and Public Administration. She later obtained a post graduate degree in Business Leadership from the 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网 of South Africa. She became the financial and administration department manager at Adey Tensae Media and Entertainment PLC which hosts the Ethiopian radio station, Sheger FM 102.1 Radio. Mekuria decided to gain knowledge about management in the media industry and to share different country experiences by joining the EOBM course. “I’m far away from home but it’s been very comfortable,” she says. She found the different media atmosphere refreshing in South Africa, “the media is very influenced by the government, even private media. Here the media is very independent,” she explains. To her the course helped her to understand the media industry more and also helped her gain a few skills, “(it gave me skills) in order to communicate with the media better,” Mekuria says.
The next EOBM short course will run from 24 to 28 October this year. For more information about the short courses offered at the SPI contact Zusipe Batyi – z.batyi@ru.ac.za or visit the webpage (hyperlink “visit the webpage” to http://www.ru.ac.za/spi/studying) for dates and information.