Television made its debut in Belize in 1981 with Tropical Vision airing on Channel 7. In the early days, there were three main channels: seven, nine, and sometimes eleven, which rebroadcasted programs from North America. By the mid-80s, the Chicago Cubs games and soap operas such as Days of Our Lives, Santa Barbara, and Another World were all the rage. As locally produced programs started to emerge, along with news and sports broadcasts, television transformed over the next decade into Belizeans’ favorite way to get information. Twenty years in, TV was already overtaking radio and newspapers as the go-to medium for staying informed and educated. Now, almost forty-five years later, television has outshone the other mediums, pushing newspapers to the brink of obsolescence. In this week’s edition of Kolcha Tuesday, News Five’s Marion Ali explores how television has helped shape Belizean culture.
The very first TV programs in Belize hit the airwaves in 1981, the same year the country gained political independence. Back then, most of the shows were broadcasts from U.S.-based TV stations. As TV gained popularity, Belizeans became hooked on what was then the prime source of entertainment. Who could forget Harry Carey and Cubs Baseball, or the steamy plots of soap operas like Another World? From its introduction in 1981, even though we didn’t have continuous on-air programming, there were locally produced shows that aired, like the hoisting of the Belizean National Flag and the Independence Day parade. Quite a few shows followed in the early years of Belizean TV. Silvaana Udz wrote, produced, and presented Belize All Over. She believes that television has transformed Belizean culture over the decades.
Silvaana Udz, Producer/Presenter, Belize All Over 1989-90
“Fascinating medium, but my goodness, it makes things larger than life – television. That burger you wanna sink your teeth into it when you see the ad. We crave things because we see it. What is your image of a beautiful person? We constantly are bombarded with these images. Some of the early rappers in Belize, they would rap with a Jamaican accent, or they would bring in Jamaican wording instead of – “They say this and they say that and go, “Dema say – dema this,” which would be more Jamaican. So, it definitely impacts everything, culture, etcetera.”
Denvor Fairweather, Local TV Producer
“I realized that there nothing much on TV in terms of entertainment, so I made investment from my salary to get equipment and actually did my first local TV show “You Name It” in 1995. We did actually four seasons of Noh Matta Wat. We did season one in 2005. We did season two in 2006. I believe we did season three in 2008. And we did season four in 2010 because Steve Berry was still a professor at Howard, and he just took some sabbaticals or periods off where he did come back and then we worked on the seasons. In 2017, we teamed up with Kim Vasquez, and we did a pilot for episode season of a sitcom named “Living Mi Life.”
Fairweather recalls his childhood before TVs were in every bedroom and living room. He feels that television has taken away some of the old-time traditions we used to cherish.
“The social aspect of watching movies in theatres and going out on Sunday evening for ice cream and stuff like that changed people to stay home and watch TV. So it was, let’s say, it had a negative social effect in that aspect. The other negative social, major negative social effect that TV had was, I remember when Colors came out back in about 1987. I think Colors came out around that time. That’s when you started to hear about Crips and Bloods and then the gangbang. And I suppose you had bad man and you had bad areas, but they weren’t affiliated or associated and teaming up as such.”
Stewart Krohn, Former Managing Director, Channel 5
“Things like smoking, you know, fewer Americans smoke now. Guess what? Fewer Belizians smoke. It might be because cigarettes are so much more expensive now, but it might be that people are more health conscious. People work out and live healthier lifestyles more than they used to. Maybe this was a homegrown thing, but maybe, just maybe, it was influenced by what we see on television. It’s a very powerful medium and in many cases it sets the narrative.”
But Krohn also pointed out some more serious issues that television might have influenced.
“Let’s take the instance of environmentalism. It’s my belief that as the United States Culture moved more toward environmentally friendly, um, a more environmentally friendly position. I think Belize reflected that. While you had your forces in Belize pushing toward conservation and that, certainly it got a boost when you saw that culturally the United States got big into conservation. It made it much easier for that message to sell in Belize. I would add to that the same attitudes towards LGBTQ plus things. Personally, I see that as a positive influence. Others might look at it as a negative influence.”
Fairweather would like to see more local culture in Belizean television, but he says it takes a lot of capital investment for these types of programs.
“When it comes to entertainment based programming that may not have as much viewership as news, albeit it would be more entertaining, but also costs more to produce. For example, when I do, for a season of “Noh Matta Wat,” we would actually spend about six months shooting, planning and shooting. And another two months editing, so we were doing somewhere between six and eight months of work for eight to ten episodes, weekly episodes. Now, if I try to charge, when we look at it, I only have about twelve minutes of advertising.”
Fairweather revealed that he’s working on a new program set to air in December. The series will be called Clutches. Marion Ali for News Five.
