Devon Dick

I am disappointed that the documentaries, on Black footballers in England, which started with Lindy Delapenha as the first great Black footballer in the English League; and on Mary Seacole and Catch-A-Fire: Paul Bogle (1865) The Morant Bay Rebellion and Massacre, though aired on BBC in England have never been shown on Jamaican television. I feel a sense of national pride to watch the achievements of Jamaicans.

I have been following TVJ/ Digicel's Rising Stars for the last three seasons because I support good local programmes, which highlight the achievements of Jamaicans. The TVJ/Digicel's Rising Stars is a good production, so too is the MiPhone Dancing Dynamites. I believe that both productions should target the Jamaicans in the diaspora and earn some extra revenue and also expose Jamaican talent and productions.

In 2005, I selected Chris Martin. Last year, I selected One Third. Interestingly, Concheta Johnson, the mother of Al Johnson of the group One Third, is a long-standing member of the Boulevard Baptist Church choir. This year, I selected Jodian Pantry to be the winner. In fact, I selected her from the beginning as the winner because of the opera piece. It showed that she had a good voice and she was courageous to have selected such a piece for her auditioning; all qualities of a 'star'.

But there are some pitfalls of which we ought to be careful. And these comments are not due to my getting the selection wrong this year. The Sunday Gleaner reported that Romain Virgo's alma mater had the school bus drive around the parish and country facilitating the collection of money to purchase phone cards.

Unhealthy development

It is commendable to have school support, however, to be using the school bus and schoolers to beg money is an unhealthy deve-lopment. This heavy campaigning takes away the fun from the competition. The holding of dances and fetes are not new. Noddy Virtue and perhaps others have done it. The next stage will be to buy votes by giving out phone cards to vote for my 'star'.

I, therefore, suggest that the competition adopt a 'one phone, one vote' policy. Each phone owner should be allowed to make one vote per day for his or her favourite contestant. This would ensure that the rising star competition has widespread support rather than just the backing of wealthy support and heavy campaigning.

It would mean that there would be no reward for persons who vote the most. That prize seemed designed more to increase the coffers of the phone company rather than enhance the competition or finding a future star. The feeling that the phone company is trying to make money is further enhanced by one of the rules of the competition, wherein after voting for the contestants and arriving at the two persons with the least votes, then the voters were asked to vote again to decide who should be eliminated from the competition.

Openness, transparency

The competition would also lose its image of being money-making if the value of the votes cast were to be announced. This openness and transparency would show if the sponsors are in it to promote Jamaican culture or if it is another way of generating more revenue.

Another suggestion that could help the competition came from Anthony Miller, one of the judges. On Friday night Miller told the contestants that talent alone cannot win a competition but they need 'social skills' also, to make people vote for them. I agree with him and I also believe that the judges could improve on their social skills and make the 'Rising Stars' a better production.

If these pitfalls of the TVJ/ Digicel's Rising Stars competition are addressed, the next season could be bigger and better.