MTN Ekasi TV screens 2010 AFCON games

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The MTN Ekasi TV sites are screening the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations in Angola games live. The first permanent big screen TV went up in Diepsloot in December 2007 and the project now consists of 19 sites across the country.

The sites are located in Diepsloot, Ivory Park, Joubert Park, Orange Farm, Thokoza, Diepkloof, Lenasia, Eldorado Park, Orlando West, Elandsdoorn, Phalaborwa, Masoyi (Nelspruit), Motherwell (PE), Mtubatuba (KZN), KwaMashu (KZN), Middelburg, Kathlehong, Tembisa and KwaThema.

“It's an amazing feeling,” says Township TV co-founder, Graeme Joffe. “I remember walking in the Diepsloot park in April 2007, trying to visualise how we could take TV to the people and the dream has been more than realised thanks to the likes of our title sponsor MTN and partners, JHB City Parks, the respective municipalities, DSTV and Ellies.”

The TVs go on at 2pm every day with some form of kids' entertainment and is followed by music and football. Joffe also emphasised the need to show more than just football. “We need the kids to see the likes of Bryan Habana and Makhaya Ntini - hopefully that will create a new interest for them and they will become our future sporting heroes.”

“What is so pleasing for us is that the communities have taken ownership of the TVs”, added Joffe. “We have only had a couple incidents of theft in Alexandra which forced us to move that screen to another location.”