Features
Melissa Doughty
It’s a fusion, a musical melting pot as TTT Ltd brings together a mix of local artists for its first jazz show.
Under its radio brand Sweet 100.1 FM, the media house will present Jazz – a fusion of our music and culture, on June 4 at the International Waterfront, Port of Spain.
TTT Ltd CEO David Roberts said the show was part of the state broadcaster’s wider mandate to take its listener and audience to the next level of experience.
“During the last two years we have been very limited in terms of our movement due to the pandemic. We felt like now was the time for us to introduce what is the first Sweet 100 event outside of the usual Christmas events.
The event is in line with the station’s contemporary adult market and also provides opportunities for artists and creative people, he added.
Patrice Roberts and the A Team, Nailah Blackman and Sokah, Destra and Bakanal, David Rudder, Freetown Collective, Carl “Beaver” Henderson with Moricia Cagan and Kay Alleyne, Sharda Patasar, Pedro Lezama, Adrian King and Joshua Regrello are the performers for the event.
It is also part of the media house’s strategy to provide local content to a global market.
Roberts said the company has been observing consumption patterns and although it is a live event, the company will package it for TV and online audiences through its partnership with Tego. Tego is an app that provides content from Caribbean TV stations.
“We have our partnership with Tego for online streaming. And we’ve pre-tested paid content pieces to see what the response would be and understand where people are looking at us and looking for our content.”
The cast was also chosen to help sell the show to its audience. TTT Ltd selected the cast to represent Trinidad and Tobago.
“We’re going to be promoting the content when it comes to streaming and streaming to make sure we get the kind of interest we want for it.”
Initially, the media house would broadcast its content simultaneously.
Recognizing this, Roberts decided to do things differently and instead stream content at different times based on his stats.
TTT Ltd is on a mission to become as data driven as possible. It was renamed and relaunched in 2018. It was previously Caribbean New Media Group (CNMG). However, TTT, in its original form, was the state media from 1962-2005.
Roberts said TTT Ltd is becoming more strategic about what and when it posts.
So he decided to host a jazz show as “it was the right lane and a good brand for us to bring out as a signature event”.
This is the first year and he hopes it will become part of the TT calendar of events. The site has received good feedback for its local content, he added.
In January, the media house received its plaque from YouTube for 100,000 subscribers.
“We’ve found that there’s a lot of interest in local content – it just has to be high quality, relevant and lively,” he said.
The media house also partnered with stakeholders like FilmTT to produce a lot of local content. He recently held a writer’s forum with FilmTT and hopes to produce a local sitcom out of it.
“We’ve seen very good feedback in the interest around local content. We have worked with key corporate partners such as Digicel and the National Lotteries Control Board (NLCB) to ensure we get the support required to broadcast local content.
“We’ve seen international markets respond positively as well,” Roberts said.
As of February, TTT was broadcasting in Canada through Toober, an app for foreign TV channels. It wants to create similar partnerships in the US and the UK, he added.
The media house is also preparing for the future of the metaverse and artificial intelligence (AI). Although it’s not as far as it could be, Roberts said, it’s something to aim for.
It is working closely with the University of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT) to enter that area, although Roberts did not want to give further details on the projects.
“We understand very clearly: where we have been is not where we are going. It’s to ensure that the messaging and nostalgia attached to what TTT was remains relevant in what the world is becoming.
“The only way we can do that is to make the content available where people are and make sure it’s relevant and make sure it’s of such a high standard that it doesn’t have that excuse,” he said.
