A visit from Cameroon's CRTV

Last week DW's Eco Africa had a visitor from our French-language partner station CRTV Cameroon Radio and Television Service. Gérard Désiré Nguélé, a program coordinator in charge of quality control and planning, spent a week with the Eco team in Berlin.

DW: Where are you from?

Gérard Désiré Nguélé: Yaounde, Cameroon.

And you work for a DW partner station?

Yes, I work at CRTV — Cameroon Radio Television. I my section there are around 200 employees, but that is only part of CRTV, it's the number that work directly for our programing.

Why did you come to visit DW?

I wanted to meet the Eco Africa team: to exchange ideas with them, see how they work and understand the process and demands for collaboration.

What do viewers in Cameroon think about Eco Africa?

They like it. Eco Africa is the first environmental program on CRTV — maybe even in Cameroon! Second, it is well made and has good quality content.

What do you think about the cooperation between DW and CRTV?

We have just finished the first year of working together, and from our side we have made a lot of progress, and we are finally mastering the technical aspects that we need to bring to the table.

I am personally on the tech side and it works quite well and we are in constant contact. Additionally, in 2018 DW offered a training course for our crew and has now given us some great recording equipment to make our filming and editing much easier. It is great support.

And soon we want to create more actual content and not just broadcast the show or film lead-ins. 

Any concrete plans?

Right now CRTV has four broadcast channels: three TV and a website. Eco is only on one right now; as of September it will be on three since we will take parts of the show and integrate them into other programs, especially for our morning talk show.

What are the biggest challenges?

Having the tech equipment ready and at hand and matching the quality standards that the show is known for.

What do you like best about working on Eco Africa?

At Eco we do things differently than we have up to now in Cameroon. We really have fun making the program and viewers look forward to seeing our next filming locations. We also have a lot of fun looking for new places to film the lead-ins in and around the city.

This interview was conducted on July 4 in French by Timothy A. Rooks and has been condensed and edited for clarity