Somali TV was first shown on April 19, 1997 with the help of the Confederation of Somali community and the Minneapolis Telecommunications Network. MTN provided me with the training and the use of the facilities and equipment to edit; they made the program possible.
Tell me a little about how the show is structured.
It is a one-hour show and we divide that hour into three segments. The first segment is about morality. The second segment is about community activity. The third segment is music, culture and dance. Our program is in the Somali language. This program is for Somalis, who are not addressed by the mainstream media. We provide the community with the information that they need for all aspects of life.
Who watches the show?
It is estimated that 40 to 60,000 Somalis live in the Twin Cities metro area, and they all watch the program. Parents tell us that this is the only program that all the family watches – the kids watch cartoons, the parents and elderly listen to the news and other shows, but when it comes to Somali TV everybody sits and listens. And they always request more programming from us. The music section is popular among all East Africans: the Oromo, Ethiopians, Sudanese - they listen and they call and request special songs.
On MTN there are two weekly episodes of Somali TV, but there are other Somali television shows as well.
There are two hours on MTN of Somali TV , on Mondays and Thursdays, but also Somalis who don’t live in Minneapolis want to see the show, so we established an hour on Channel 6 which is metro-wide. That’s three hours of Somali TV that we produce per week. There’s also Somali American Media and Somali Show on MTN; those are other Somali programs. Our show is the oldest of them, and we celebrated our fifth anniversary in April. Somalis watch all the shows because they are very hungry for their culture and their language, and this is the only place they can get it on TV.
Are you doing anything special to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the show?
We’ve been trying to replay our old tapes, to show how things were back then and how they have changed. Everybody knows that we are progressing every day; people call and tell us we are doing a great job. Originally, I was director, producer, cameraman, the anchor and everything. After a year Mohamed Shino came in, then Siad, then we became a crew. I appreciate all the help from the crew, Siad Said Salah, Mohamud Mas'ade, Ubah Osman and Mohamed Shino who is our great host and now he is even working freelance for the BBC because they were impressed with him when they visited the Twin Cities.
Is there anything else you’d like to say?
I would like to thank very much the Minneapolis Telecommunications Network, which provides this great support; without them this would not be possible. I would like to thank my wife, who makes it possible for me to volunteer by taking care of our children. I spend three days or at least twenty hours a week making the show, with the help of the rest of the volunteers in our crew. And I would like to thank the Somali TV crew. Without them the program would not be possible. I would like to thank the Confederation of Somalis and the Somali community in the Twin Cities, Somali businesses, educators, doctors, sheikhs, politicians and intellectuals, and also the musicians, poets, music groups, composers and conductors.
Somali TV is shown on MTN channel 16 on Mondays and Thursdays at 5 p.m. MTN also shows two other Somali programs, Somali Show on Fridays and Somali American Media on Saturdays, both at 5 p.m. on Channel 16.