‘The Station of the Nation’ – that’s what they keep telling us and that’s what they keep proving they so aren’t.
The Black Stars of Ghana were involved in a make or break tie against the Pharaohs of Egypt Sunday, a must win tie that was as much a national event as any political commissioning the President has done in the past few months with the elections in mind.
Yet they cover the latter so enthusiastically, but failed to broadcast the former.
With the game approaching (1600 GMT Sunday) – Ghanaians waited eagerly for the tie, yet GTV showed no sign they were going to broadcast it. As time approached, there was no panel of discussion, and no communication from the ‘station of the nation’ on their intentions. Yet Ghanaian patiently waited, until the game kicked off and everyone realised this was not the day GTV would deliver.
The senior national team, the Black Stars, were engaged in a crucial qualifier and GTV were nonchalant. They even took the time to telecast a European qualifying game on their sports channel.
But that was not the worst part of GTV’s conduct on Sunday. When it became clear they would not telecast the game, they took to twitter to apologise – but then also to promise to telecast a repeat and highlights of the game today (Monday).

Sorry for our inability to show the Live game between Egypt & Ghana.
We promise to show a Repeat and Highlights of the game tomorrow.

— Ghana Television (@GBC_Ghana) November 13, 2016

Of course, the irritation Ghanaians felt at that nonsensical promise became even worse after the Stars lost 2-0 to Egypt, all but ending their world cup hopes. Now we are supposed to watch a repeat of a game we lost, which we could not even watch live because of the incompetence of those in charge of our supposed national station.
GTV is something of a joke among the future of this country, the young people who barely ever patronise its programming. The station, understandably, is handicapped in some ways in what they can show due to their mandate of public service broadcasting – but the Black Stars is one of the few areas where that mandate intersects with something real exciting that energises Ghanaians.
Everytime GTV makes such a goof, it just solidifies their status as a joke in the eyes of majority of the public, most especially the youth who again, are the future of this country. GTV scored a spectacular own goal earlier this year when South African President Thabo Mbeki was declared dead by them on the basis of a fake internet story. Three months on, it seems nobody in the upper echelons in that dinosaur of an organisation has learned anything .