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Christopher Daley played 'Johnny' on Lime Tree Lane.
Local drama director and producer Pablo Hoilet says local television stations require too much revenue for local production. According to the Lime Tree Lane director, sacrifices have to be made in order to revive local drama.
According to Hoilet, one such local drama, Lime Tree Lane, might have ended because of lack of sponsorship. Lime Tree Lane was a local sitcom which ran from 1988-1997. It was aired on JBC TV (Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation TV) now TVJ.
"It's been a long time, and some things are still unclear, but it may have had to do with lack of sponsorship," he said.
According to Hoilet, the actors who participated in the production had to make sacrifices in order to keep the once-popular television sitcom running each night.
"JBC, which was the station at the time, had to find a way to pay the actors out of a small budget. In fact, Don Bucknor was behind that, but the approach is not like that anymore, they will say they want millions to do a production," he said.
The director explained that local media is more concerned with the 'paper chase' than preserving local product.
"It is not to say that we don't want an international production, but you have to creep before you can walk, Lime Tree Lane took a lot of sacrifice," he continued.
"That sense of responsibility to pursue local drama and preserve it does not exist anymore, it's all about the pay cheque," he said.
Hoilet believes there is no point in doing a product that will be rung dry by the television stations, before it is given a chance to bloom.
"People who control the
television stations have the access to the airwaves, if I write a script am going to need the assistance of television to host it, but they are too expensive, so they need to be more responsible and say local drama needs more development - they lock out local drama by charging some unreasonable sums of money to broadcast," he said.
The STAR contacted Michael Looktong, the director of media services at Flow who while acknowledging the gap in local production, says that local producers should turn to Flow.
"We realise that there exists quality in local production and we provide the distribution platform that wasn't around 10 years ago ... . We have had requests from local producers and we have established partnerships and it is doing well ... . Our viewership has grown by 20 per cent and we have generated over 500,000 cumulate viewers per month since introducing local programmes," he said.
According to Looktong, it costs more to stream local production, which is why mainstream media tend to rely on international products.
"International programming is cheaper, but local programming you have to produce it from scratch, so you wouldn't be able to do it without sponsorship and advertising," he said.
Looktong said that local production needs support but the media is a business.
"Local production needs support, but you know everybody has their business to run ... so we at Flow just provide the means to get them out," he said.
Looktong also advised local producers to look at Flow for local production.
"We have the platform to have your products distributed, just give us a call," he concluded providing an answer for Hoilet.
"If I had access to airtime and the resources, I would perhaps consider starting back the show (Lime Tree Lane) because there is a huge gap in local sitcom. But it's a different time and different people, loyals just put some pressure on who make the decisions in the companies whose products you support," Hoilet said.
Dorothy Cunningham played 'Miss Zella' on Lime Tree Lane. - file
