Muradzikwa was fired on Tuesday last week, days after Minister of Information permanent secretary George Charamba indicated that the broadcasting group had sold out to “dirty money”.
Commentators argue Muradzikwa was sacked for failing to handle the ruling ZANU PF party campaign during the March 29 harmonised elections, in which the ruling party lost the majority for the first time in parliament to the MDC, whose leader Morgan Tsvangirai beat president Robert Mugabe in the presidential race now to go for a run off on June 27.
“We have been deserted by advertisers and readers,” Mutasa, the chief executive of the state-controlled Zimpapers group, told a meeting of ZBCTv staffers.
This was the first official admission by the broadcaster that its haemorrhage was due to a flight of advertisers, who have shunned the state television and radios because of poor quality transmission blamed on low morale and antiquated equipment.
It is now common in all ZBCTv news broadcasts to receive no sound, or poor images, or get wrong clips for news slots, and then get an accompanying statement from newscasters: “We apologise for the poor sound and picture quality in the previous report.”
The broadcaster is now only running advertisements from non-governmental organisations campaigning against the spread of the HIV/AIDS virus as well as from musical promotion groups announcing venues for gigs and parties.
Commercial advertisements from the business sector, the heart of the group's revenue, have almost dried up and this lack of advertising had hamstrung operations as revenue streams dwindled, triggering a massive flight of qualified personnel to the private sector or abroad.
Muradzikwa, a former head of the state-owned news agency, Ziana, had spent barely two years at the helm during which time he had battles with workers over poor pay and working conditions.
The ZBC has been accused of biased reporting favouring the incumbent regime and maligning the opposition.
