TV in Benin

Television in Benin is basically comprised of 5 parts. First, there are very, very few channels. As far as I can tell, unless you have a special satellite dish (in which case you get Francophone BBC and some French-from-France channels), you get about 4-5 channels, most of which broadcast the same stuff. Radio seems to have a nice variety or programming, but I don't have a radio.

Part 1: the News. Most of Benin's TV is newscasts or special news shows. They talk a lot about politics and education. I guess in a developing country, they like to keep an eye on their government and the most recent developments in their country. Yesterday they were talking a lot about micro credits for women. They were interviewing women in the north of the country, they had subtitles because these women don't speak French or Fon, they speak whatever language they speak up "in the north". After the news they had an interview with the Minister of Secondary and Post-secondary Education. He was funny in a I'm-Way-Too-Honest-To-Be-A-Politician kind of way. I liked the cut of his jib.

Their TV reminds me a lot of TV in Canada in the 80s. When they try to cut to a caller who wants to ask a question sometimes they can't get through or the call comes in with a lot of feedback. They try to cut to a special report and the technician can't quite seem to get his shiz together, so the news anchor will have to say, "we'll get to that video later." They use blue screen, but they're not sure which camera to cut to. The production side is a work in progress... but the content is pretty interesting and well edited.

They very rarely have international news, but I guess once a day they'll have international news for about 15 minutes. They often talk about Obama, if there's something interesting to be reported. I saw Hilary on a few days ago, but the volume was cutting in and out and I didn't really hear what they were talking about. I really have very little clue what's going on in Canada or in Europe. Happily my friend Emma sends me little email updates on the state of the world. Doesn't seem that anything much has changed over there: gun violence, economic crisis (this is one helluva long "crisis"), politicians being douchebags, Obama being dreamy... strangely, I don't miss not knowing what's going on in Hollywood, although I hear Madonna adopted another baby.

One thing I love/hate about the news here is that they show dead bodies and disease. Police gunned down some robbers? Please have a look at their bullet-ridden bodies! Car went up in flames after hitting a post due to drunk driving way too fast? Let's cut to the charred remains they pulled out of the vehicle after they managed to put out the flames! Disease is ravaging a village? Let's look at how it's eating at the flesh of this 7 year-old.

Not sure how I feel about it, except that it's actual reality and it's kind of refreshing. Rather than glorifying violence and disease in Hollywood and watching it on CSI... enough glorification and you start to think that reality doesn't look like what it looks like...

The thing in Benin is that there's often GOOD news on television and rarely violence, robberies or political stupidity... but that might just be because of the productivity of their current president, Boni Yayi. He seems to be getting a lot of stuff done.

Normally the last 5 minutes of the news is horse-racing results. We do lotto 649, they do horseracing.

Part 2: Music Videos. Most of the morning TV is made up of music videos. A lot of it is American hiphop, but a lot of it is also local artists, either from the Ivory Coast or Benin. There are a couple African hiphop artists that are really good. Some are considered pretty big stars although I've never heard of them. Just like it was funny in Montreal, it's hilarious to me when a hiphop song is uberpopular in a French-speaking place where they don't understand the lyrics.

Any music video made in Benin is normally shot at one of the nice hotels on the beach. They're all pretty funny and look like they were shot by highschool students, but hey, keep at it. The music videos for traditionnal songs are nice and normally have a story, so they're interesting to watch.

Part 3: Soap Operas. In Benin, they call them "feuilletons" which to me is a piece of paper or a small booklet, but to them is a soap opera series. As far as I can tell there are 4 TV shows that I could follow if my TV channels came in properly. First and foremost, there's a soap from Mexico. Yup! Mexico dubbed in French. I think it's Mexican because the help looks Mexican but you know how soap operas are pretty generic in their locations... Could be Spain. It's a typical soap opera - rich families who all sleep with each other or want to. Ungrateful kids who try to split their parents' new relationships up. Poor families who become rich, disown each other... someone was murdered and they're trying to figure out who the killer is before they hit again. The mother went away to prison and her kids don't know she's their mother and now she's back but they hate her and maybe it's her husband that killed the woman she went away to prison for killing... Love it!

Next there's the Beninese soap called something like, "2 sisters for the same man". I haven't been following this one as much, I'm not sure what time it's on. From what I can tell, right now, one sister is pregnant with the other sister's husband's baby!! And her mother is supporting her in this decision and may have even encouraged the pregnancy. There's another Beninese show that's more of a comedy, but the only time I saw that one was when we were in the waiting room at the Minister's office. Otherwise I'm not home during the day to watch it. I'm learning a lot about what's considered "normal" in relationships here (and yet SO not cool), but I'll get to that in another blog entry.

If I get all my channels, sometimes I can get S-Club7 and Las Vegas, yes, dubbed in French.

Part 4: Variety Shows. Oh Variety Shows. They do something really weird here called Play Back, which I guess is the same thing we do in America except we hide it better. I guess no one bothers to sing live here unless they're in concert. So they announce that the artist they have coming on their show will be lipsyching to a tape. I love when the CD skips. It's basically an opportunity to showcase some dancers, which is nice, But I think it makes the artist look stupid. No one here seems to mind though. I love when they show the audience dancing. We would consider some of their dancing to be a little, um, inappropriate, but this is Africa.

This one guy has a daily news/cooking/authors/singers/whoever show on at lunch time on weekends (and maybe during the week but I'm not home to watch it?). He always wears the shiniest satin shirts!! So awful. The cooking part is fun, but it's sponsored by an italian pasta company, and the parts I'd like to learn how to make, like their peanut sauces or other sauces, they just say, "now add your peanut sauce" like everyone already knows how to make it. Oh well, sucks to be me I suppose!

Part 5: What could part 5 possibly be?? FOOTBALL of course. There's a match on every few days. One of the Paris teams has an awesome player from Benin, so those matches tend to get played at the bars here more often. I haven't become addicted or anything, but I don't mind watching games.

No one here even knows what hockey is. I can't say I miss it.

I will say that I miss The Hour. Oh George. I know you're available online, but online is so difficult here! Sigh... I guess when I get back I can have fun catching up on all my George time...