BY PRECIOUS CHIDA
RUNNING top comedy outfit Bustop TV, over the last five years, has proved to be good business for the production team as it has gained significant traction and raked in profits on the back of hilarious and satirical skits that have found many takers among the public.
Bustop TV co-founder and producer Lucky Aaron told NewsDay Life & Style yesterday that the production, which he said was a commercial success, had financially transformed their lives.
“Bustop TV has continuously proved to us that comedy is good business if one is dedicated. When we started, we thought we were just doing it for fun, but we miraculously found ourselves managing to run a production and feeding our families from it. We are all now full-time at Bustop TV,” he said.
Aaron said they had been fortunate to override the scourge of piracy as they used humour for commercial gain, attracting buy-ins from corporate players, including Nash Paints, whose adverts now feature on their skits.
He said jesters Samantha “Gonyeti” Kureya and Sharon “Maggie” Chideu — who have become the faces of the production company’s popular skits — have both bought cars from their earnings at Bustop TV.
The outfit recently bought a new van to make them two.
Aaron acknowledged that when they started out, it was just for fun, but have now managed to transform Bustop TV into a viable enterprise.
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“When we started, we didn’t know what we were doing. We made many mistakes along the way. We didn’t know we could make so much money out of it and thought we were just doing it for fun,” he said.
“We also didn’t have the right gear for production, but now we have better equipment. We have also been shooting over the last five years, which has helped us develop the style and tricks that have kept us going.”
Aaron said their decision to articulate Zimbabwean stories using humour generating dialogue on current affairs, politics, economic and social issues, including religion has paid off in ways they had not initially imagined.
He, however, said the working environment was still not very conducive due to high levels of intolerance and limited freedom of expression.
“The lack of financial support is a bit of a hindrance, as we could definitely be bigger than we are now if we had a strong financial back-up,” he added.
