By Lawrence Enyoghasu
AFTER spending 20 years with the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, Bisi Olatilo left to become a boss of his own and became the famous producer of Bisi Olatilo Show (BOS), which has been on air for 20 years. In this interview, he gave an insight into how he be- came a brand and why he is moving into television broadcasting.
Why did you leave FRCN?
I am 64 years now. Do you want me to stay there? A lot of people left a long time before me. I didn’t leave when I was supposed to; I left later than I was expected to.
Are you dumping BOS?
BOS is a television magazine show, which comprises many things including politics and oth- ers. It was formerly aired once a week for one hour and that is why we are giv- ing ourselves more room to really show the world what we can offer them and that is why we decided to have a whole basket to ourselves and that is why we launched what we call the Biscon TV. It is the longer version of the snip- pet we have been feeding our audience. For those who watch the show; it is a combination of all the gamut of broadcasting. We will give the entire differ- ent gamut enough time to express ourselves.
In this time of internet TV and all, how are you coping?
That is why we are streaming live. Whatever you see on the channel we stream live on www.Biscon.tv
How do you see competition?
There is no running away from competition. We are leveraging on the grounds we have gained with BOS, also the materials from it and improving on
it. We are beating our own record I said before,
there is no privately produced programme that is as consistent as ours, knowing how very expensive it is to run for being able to do this for this length of time it makes you a darling to the people. What I said before with the TV is to give us enough room. You know that if you watch the BOS regularly you will notice that we have almost everything there. There is no event that we don’t cover. That was what prompt- ed us to launch into it properly.
Do you think you can run the station?
My background as a broadcaster has touched the entire area. I am the longest serving man who has read the network news on Radio Nigeria for 20 years when we didn’t have proliferation of stations, that means that you must listen to me either by 7am or 4pm. And during my training in FRCN, we were made to go through uptight production; I was the news reader, producer and presenter, all of that has now widened my horizon.
What USPs do you have to offer the public?
In the package we have for the people are Biscon Breakfast, Biscon-Bubbles, Biscon-Happy hour and Biscon-news trending; two hours interval. One of our strongest selling points is Biscon-Happy Hour.
We bring artistes on the show to interact with fans. The closest most of these fans and followers have been to their artistes is seeing them on television. We want to bring them along, so we have people coming. We just want to bring the public closer to these great artistes we are talking about. It is an entertainment show where they are free to ask them any question. People also look out for interviews with politicians which we call Biscon-politics. We are try- ing to make our programme go with our name because we are just starting; they already know BOS but how do they tag it with the televi- sion is what we are trying
to achieve. Another pro- gramme we do that is going to thrill the crowd is Biscon- live, we go out to do this. It is about anything. All what I have told you will be shown from Monday to Friday and weekends.
What’s your ultimate goal?
What we want to do with the station is to bring young people who are fresh from the oven. It is not the type of people you say that you have been seeing around, we want to be able to tell people that we build them and nurture them. I am looking to pass down the torch to somebody who will continue the race. The oldest person on my staff list is in his 30.
Nothing for children?
There is Biscon-Talent hunt. I don’t want to do things without involving the young ones. There is also Biscon-Youth forum. One of the reasons we started this station is what you might call the negligence of the youths. They say al- though the youths watch the marriages that we air on BOS, it is their parents that buy the space for them. They want us to reach out to them on our own. The talent hunt will include all type of skills they may have and showcase them.
What about the challenges of content?
There is nobody who can ignore that. All I have mentioned above has been in place and there is a bank for them all. Then we will be filling them up as we use. Then of course we have a fall back plan on BOS because we have a very rich archive for that.
It is not going to be our major source, it is going to contribute to it. It is not going to override the major things that we will have. We are not going to jettison BOS.