The President of the Film Producers’ Association of Ghana (FIPAG), James Aboagye, says his outfit along with other stakeholders in the movie industry have no intention of banning TV stations from airing Ghanaian content.

According to him, the directive issued to producers in May, was to stop FIPAG members from selling their feature films to TV stations until further notice.

Speaking on Showbiz A-Z, he explained that the decision was taken to put value on the movies produced and halt the gradual killing of the movie industry.

“We never said we will not let TV stations show Ghanaian content. There is a difference between feature movies and Ghanaian content. How can you say no more Ghanaian content on TV? We have been diagnosing the industry and realised one of our bad decisions was the show of our [feature] movies on TV,” Mr Aboagye stated.

In May, Ghanaian filmmakers were tasked by their governing bodies to stop selling their feature films to TV stations from July 1.

According to the leadership, that is, Film Producers Association, Makers & Distributors Association, Film Crew Association, Ghana Academy of Film & Television Arts and other stakeholders, this was part of a decision taken to address challenges facing the movie industry. 

“Any Producer or film Marketer who flouts these directives shall be sanctioned accordingly. All film stakeholders must take these directives seriously and comply accordingly until further notice,” parts of the statement read.

The FIPAG President said that the association recognised that some TV stations had contracts with some producers to air their films, hence they made provisions to ensure that those contracts will run till they expire.

He stated that the Association’s decision is to also protect producers especially after explaining that some of them can sell a feature film of 90 minutes for as low as ¢100 to TV stations.

He added that “first of all, the movies were not made for television. They were home videos or you could go to cinema halls and watch them. They were meant for sale to the public, but because the movies have become too available (on TV), the demand for it and the price for it falls.”

Meanwhile, Mr Aboagye said that the directive issued to producers will give the Association room to find ways to integrate feature films into the market to push sales.

He explained that since people are eager to watch the movies on TV there is already a demand for it, thus, FIPAG and other industry stakeholders will work on ways to get movie lovers to purchase the films.

“We said we were not going to allow our members to give the movies to the tv stations until further notice, until we put our house in order. This is because we cannot continue to create the mess while we are trying to get out of the mess,” he added.