TTT to launch today

THE Prime Minister and Communications Minister Stuart Young will be among the audience who will witness the launch of TT Television (TTT) Ltd at Maraval Road, Port of Spain from 2 pm today.

This was revealed yesterday by company chairman Lisa Agard.

She also disclosed that TTT’s first official broadcast will be live coverage of tomorrow’s Independence day military parade.

Young, who confirmed today’s launch, previously said the event was being timed to coincide with the first incarnation of TTT on August 31, 1962.

Agard said, “You will really see the full effect of the new look, new personalities, in the morning.

We are very much committed with local content and partnering with people who have existing content and who will develop content in the future.”

Agard said a well-known media personality will be appearing next Monday on TTT’s morning show and that “she” will be partnering with some young personalities.

“It will be a significant feature of our programming going forward.”

Saying the new company has already been registered, Agard said, “There is a lot of local content out there, but there is no system for distribution, so TTT will be a critical stepping stone for developing that eco-system for distribution.”

The company has recently discovered a rich collection of local content, including clips of movies and documentaries, she said, and will provide a platform to promote local content available in TT, the region and within the wider diaspora as well.

In terms of news, Agard hinted at a different approach which could focus on topics which are trending in addition to current events.

As an example, she said next Monday is the start of the new school term.

La Horquetta/Talparo MP Maxie Cuffie, who first announced the re-launch of TTT last August, said he was pleased to see this initiative coming to fruition.

Cuffie was public administration minister at the time.

He suffered a stroke last September and was recuperating at a hospital in Washington, DC, until he returned home in July.

TTT was closed on January 4, 2005 because of financial difficulties and the Caribbean New Media Group replaced it that same year. Last August, Cuffie said CNMG was not commercially successful.

Timmy Mora, a producer with TTT in the 1980s, said, “I’m interested in seeing what the new TTT comes up with.”

He said TTT’s biggest advantage is “their history and their archive.

There are thousands of tapes sitting in a warehouse and they just cherry-pick stuff.”

The station has thousands of tapes, he said, but “no one to deal with the archiving of it.”

He added, “I am one of those people and I have a lot of TTT copies that we got working on different projects, so we worked closely with them over the years.”