There is one incontrovertible fact about Uncle Bisi Olatilo: he is a jolly good fellow. Always happy and ready to be of assistance, the veteran broadcaster who is married to Folashade and blessed with five children spent some quality time with YES INTERNATIONAL! Magazine Publisher/Editor-in-Chief, AZUH ARINZE, at his Biscon Communications office, on Sylvia Crescent, Anthony Village, Lagos where he pointed the way to go for upcoming broadcasters who are desirous of making it, his challenges as a businessman as well as how he’s been surviving them and more. Much more…
What makes a good broadcaster?
A good broadcaster? That’s a very tricky question. I think the first thing is the quality that a broadcaster should posses and it would be for you to be a never-say-die person. You have to be ready for multi-tasking. You have to be ready at every time to work beyond the time and call of duty and you have to know a bit about everybody, everything. Because I remember like the late Ikenna Ndaguba used to tell us, broadcasters should be able to dominate their environment and to be able to dominate your environment you must know a bit about almost everything.
Are broadcasters born or made?
That’s a question that (laughs) is neither here nor there. Most broadcasters are born, but some are also made. So, it’s in-between. But whichever way, whichever part that one swings to, here’s one common denominator – whether you are made or born, there’s something that has been on for a long time and whether you are broadcasters of today or broadcasters of old, there’s one thing that is sacrosanct, that you can never but abide by – and that is don’t compromise standards. Make sure that you don’t just report things you are not sure about, which is what we see almost all the time these days and that shows lack of preparedness. You must be able to report accurately. You should not sensationalize so that you don’t raise the temperature of events unnecessarily. So, I think that these are things that whether you are born or you are made, you must always have at the back of mind so you don’t go astray.
As a veteran in the business, how do you feel about the quality of broadcasters on air these days?
To be honest with you, that formed the crux of the matter that cropped up when we were trying to do things to remember the late Ikenna Ndaguba and we said that today’s broadcasters have a problem with always wanting to just get away with things. Nobody is ready to do the right things again. A while ago, I was telling you about the things that any broadcaster must possess. I remember for instance that most of the events that we held for Ikenna Ndaguba, for instance, The Night of Tributes, both in Lagos and Abuja, broadcasters that had opportunities to address the gatherings, they kept harping on one thing; that broadcasters of these days work just for money, not for the passion. You must have passion for it. The passion is the thing that will drive you, that will motivate you and the rest of it. And because of the new media that has taken over the whole place; that gives room for people to be very lackadaisical, they are very lazy; they don’t do what you call research anymore. It takes a lot of efforts to put researches together. If anybody is listening, we are crying enough. We are crying enough. Broadcasting, like Audu Ogbeh said: people embarrass his ears, so he’s stopped listening to either radio or watching TV because people have just turned it into something else. The way things are going, we are very sorry. But we will not let off. We will do our best. We will try and see how much we can salvage of the bad situation.
To speak well, what must one do?
Honestly speaking, the first thing you must do, in our days, no matter how much degree you must have acquired or how many degrees you must have acquired or how much educated; it’s a pre-requisite that you must go to what we call the language laboratory. That is where all the rough edges are smoothened and that you must undergo for a whole six months, or a year at times. And after that, you can also go for more improvement. Knowledge upgrading. There’s nothing wrong with that. But people think they could just speak, that nobody is interested in upgrading knowledge, in trying to add more to the knowledge that they have in adding value to the system itself. So, I think, first of all, the pre-requisite for any person intending to be a broadcaster, you must have that special privilege, special talent to be able to speak well. But then, you shouldn’t rest on your oars. Having gotten it, you also need to try and do a few things about it.
What is the biggest mistake that most new generation broadcasters make?
The mistake they make is that they just don’t think that they should ask from people. I mean, there’s a mantra for broadcasters, it’s a general refrain. Every broadcaster knows about this. They say that when you are in doubt, leave out. For instance, it’s unfortunate that this even happened under my nose. Just yesterday that we were preparing a story; General Akinrinade’s niece got married to General Paul Tarfa’s son. I wrote the script. If I write the script, it will be meant for another person to read it. So, the lady who was to read it, and we had gone through all the rehearsals and the rest of it. I always like to sit her down and tell her how she should deliver the script, because if she does not read it well, it won’t come across as intended by the man who wrote the script. So, I take her through a lot of lessons on that. But somehow, before she went and delivered the script, I didn’t even know about it until I was hearing it after we had finished producing it. A name as commonplace as Aduwo, she found it difficult pronouncing it. She ended up murdering that name, and if the man now sees me, a thing like that comes up on my station, that’s not a good one. And so on. Even very, very simple names like Agbalanze, like Onwanetiliora! And this lady is Igbo, which makes it more unfortunate. All you need to do is ask. The studio manager who was recording her by the way is a Yoruba person. So, what’s difficult in asking? What’s so difficult, what’s so special about that? If you are not too sure about it, ask! I mean, all those who paid tributes to Ikenna Ndaguba, they’ve been harping on people going out of their way to really read the news the way it should be read. And how do you do it? You are not supposed to know everything, I know. But that is why we have people who come from different ethnic backgrounds; all you need to do is to ask the next person and before you know it you are there. So, it is laziness, it is carelessness, it is just throwing it there. And it’s sad.
Most broadcasters are not successful. How did you do it? Because you started this journey with a lot of people, but majority of them are no longer here…
I must thank God. That is why every now and then, anywhere I go, I’m very upbeat, and very hyperactive. Because as you said, a lot of us started this. It’s grace. How many of us are still standing? Even those who still exist by the grace of God are merely existing in the true sense of the word. So, how did I do it? I think it’s God. God, and not having any animosities toward anybody; having a plain mind towards anybody and most importantly, working 30 hours in 24 hours a day. What I mean by that is that work doesn’t kill. It is lack of it that kills. So, God and also being pro-active, with also thinking ahead.
What would you say is the reason for the failure of old generation broadcasters?
Let’s not judge success by just money alone; by what you’ve been able to acquire. Ikenna Ndaguba, for instance, you couldn’t say that he made money as he should have made, putting that side by side all his efforts. But for God sake, look at what has happened. Not even a head of state could have been given the kind of burial that he got. That should show you that he’s been able to touch a lot of lives in that profession that he believed in. He lived his profession and took it to a rare height. So, I don’t know if we are talking about money now. If we are talking about money, I don’t know of any Nigerian broadcaster who has had the kind of money he would have wished to have. I don’t even think we would get there. Not in this day and time. But the important thing is how many people can you reach on one on one basis, how many people know that you exist and what kind of goodwill do you have? Do people know that you exist? And it’s very simple to discern. By your handiwork, you shall be judged. So, I think that those who frittered away the opportunity, it’s very sad. I don’t think if they have a second chance, they will do it that way.
Your turning point began when you were eased out of the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN), do you think you would have succeeded this much, if you hadn’t been pushed out?
God has a way and He has a programme for everybody. It’s only God that knows tomorrow. You talked about easing out. Happily enough, most of those that collaborated then, well, those who did what they did, some of them are even in my employ. So, this is a matter that each time it crops up, it’s a very emotional matter that I will really like to just treat as one of those things that happen to you and you start asking, you mean it happened? Because in fairness, when it happened, it was like fish out of water. It was the least I expected. So, it was like a thunderbolt out of the blues. But it came and I was jolted. In fact, maybe that’s what set me thinking and put me back on track and maybe that’s why I’ve been able to do what I’ve been able to do. And I’m sure that was also what led to The Bisi Olatilo Show. Because as soon as I got out of the place, the next surviving thing that I could do was The Bisi Olatilo Show and that’s about 16 years now and we are still standing, and like we say all the time, we are still hoping to be corrected by the people around; that programme still stands as the most successful privately produced, most consistent privately produced magazine programme. It’s been running for 15 years now and has not stopped.
Some other people in your shoes then would have given up; would have lost hope. Why didn’t you? And how were you able to gather the pieces of your life again and make a success out of it?
I think God has a purpose for all of us. When things happen like that, first of all, you get disturbed. But it means you have to go back to the drawing board and you measure up and see what you’ve not done right yourself and you now start afresh. Because what I did then was starting afresh. I looked at the whole situation and I said, what could have gone wrong? And without meaning to going back to apportioning blames and so on and so forth, I just said, let me leave this in the care of the Lord, let Him take control and it was the Lord who showed me how to do it. For instance, how did The Bisi Olatilo Show start? That’s the question to ask. Because that’s what I had to live on at the time. Thank God that while I was in service at Radio Nigeria; that was when I made quite a lot of friends from the interactions I’ve made. So, it wasn’t too tough for me to go to them and say, guys, here are my, what do you do with me? But I started The Bisi Olatimo Show, because at the time we are talking about, I was very, very strong as a master of ceremonies. Hardly did you have a week go by without me being suffocated with a lot of MC jobs. So, it was a friend who is still working with AIT (Africa Independent Television). His name is Eddy Emesiere. He’s a top executive with AIT now. He’s of Bayelsa State, but he’s a top executive of AIT. He knew the problems I had then, because even if you had all the content, all the programme, if you don’t have the platform to show it, then you have a problem. So, I was torn in-between going to AIT and NTA (Nigerian Television Authority). I got to NTA, the programme couldn’t fly. They needed money and the rest of it. AIT said, okay, let’s see how it goes. You have a good name, and let’s see if your name will drive this and lo and behold we started like that. Then, it was just go to parties, and the man said since you are Mcing, why don’t you just get somebody like a cameraman. Even if you are going to pay him! Let him go, cover these events and do what we call social diary for 15 minutes. And that was how The Bisi Olatilo Show started. We will go, cover. AIT at some point also wanted some money and I wouldn’t blame them. There’s quite a lot that they too also need to pay for. They need to pay their own bills. At the beginning we were sharing; it was like a 60-40 thing. As time went on, it became a total buy off. We had to now buy and pay. It started like a mustard seed and today we cannot say we are very successful in terms of the commercials, the remuneration we get from them. But if we had our own channel, it would have been better. But we have to pay like in a tenant-landlord relationship. If you are owing your landlord for a month, you don’t pay, it adds up to the second month; it become cumulative. Whatever it is, you have to pay at the end of the day. So, that’s the problem we have now. It would have been better for us to have our own television station, I mean to have our own TV licence, which is why people say to me, how could you win a TV licence and you don’t have a frequency to drive it. So, there’s a problem there.
What would you like to see on The Bisi Olatilo Show that you are not seeing yet?
Let me be honest with you, maybe my findings…because, I go out on my own and do a little bit of survey to see what people still need us to do. Everywhere I go, up till as we speak, they still say good programme and so on and so forth. And this is even talking about outside our shores, not just in Nigeria alone. But I think I would hope that these things could be translated to money, because it’s like people enjoy seeing what we do, but most people, they find it difficult to actually ask us to cover events for a fee. We do a lot of events for free these days because a lot of people are doing what we are doing and because they have so bastardized it, some people will just go for anything once it’s free. So, that is the problem we are having. That was why we actually had to go and get a 24-hour channel, because at a point we were choking what we were doing and the mistake some people still make is that we are more than just an event – specific programme. We pride ourselves as a total programming outfit, which means on our show, you could see anything. It could be politics, it could be sport; we take any event and we treat it properly. That’s what we are trained for; we conceptualize programmes, we do public enlightenment; all you need is to let us know. We run campaigns for people and some state governments, for instance, are buying into this – there’s Akwa –Ibom, there’s Lagos and the rest of them, because they know that we do more than just cover events.
Until recently, The Bisi Olatilo Show used to air around 6pm, but now it is 11pm. Why the change in time?
Well, I don’t see anything wrong in very late in the night. But anyway, let me say this – that is why we must get our own television station and that is why we like government to look into this. We’ve been told that Biscon TV has a licence, but it doesn’t have a frequency to run its own channel. So, AIT will now want to tell us how they want to run us at their channel otherwise we take our leave. But coming back to what you called lateness, 11pm, I don’t see it as late. Why? If you are interested in a particular programme, let’s say for instance you want to watch a film, and the film shows at about late night or a football match, you will want to do everything to watch it. And I think because the brand is popular enough, it should be able to stand the test of time. Most of those who watch us, most of those who really do business with us are our fans. They know that The Bisi Olatilo Show is now for 11pm every Monday night and they watch. Nobody has complained to me, honestly.
Lastly, what is the best way to attain and sustain success?
The best way is first-to know that there is no alternative to hard work. Then, you back it up with good character and good relationship with fellow human beings. Then, steady focus. Let your eyes always be on the ball at all times. And you must always keep reinventing yourself despite all the odds. No obstacle should be too high to surmount. And even if you fail, it does not matter how many times, but how many times you rise up. Because problems will always come; even the Bible has told us about that. But whatever happens, you should get over it. That is the secret.
NB: First published March 2014