Safaricom has announced the return of the BLAZE BYOB TV show, which will air on KTN beginning Monday 5th February 2018.
The contestants were selected from a total of 1196 auditions conducted during the BLAZE BYOB Summits that were held in Meru, Nakuru, Eldoret, Machakos, Mombasa and Nairobi last year.
“The first season of the show offered life changing opportunities to the contestants. 19-year old Valentine Nekesa won after a grueling season, surprising viewers and fans by rising from the bottom to eliminate her competition by relying on her passion and tenacity to wow the judges,” said Sylvia Mulinge, Director – Consumer Business, Safaricom.
Just like in the first season, the show will see 12 Kenyan entrepreneurs aged between 18 and 25 years compete for a chance to win a grand prize of KES 5 million in a reality TV-style competition that will run for a period of 10 weeks.
“Each contestant will be required to show GRIT. GRIT is our theme this year and an acronym for what we believe, which is that Greatness Requires Internal Toughness. We want to see the contestants get up after falling, and pushing through to the end,” added Ms. Mulinge.
The second season will feature a refreshed format whose aim is to create deeper connections between the audience and their favourite contestants, including a Mega Audition Special, deeper backstories, candid conversations between judges and contestants and new brand partners for each challenge.
Returning as judges will be straight-shooting media and marketing maven Caroline Mutoko, advertising and retail entrepreneur Trushar Khetia and multi-talented rapper and business man Kennedy Ombima, AKA King Kaka.
Over 43,000 young people below the age of 26 attended the BLAZE BYOB summits in 2017. KES 2.8 million was awarded to 42 youth who presented the best business ideas at the co-creation camps, which along with CSR Fridays were a new feature of the summits and brought together budding entrepreneurs and mentors for intensive two-day boot camps.
At the end of the sessions, youth with the best business ideas walked away with KES 100,000 in cash and KES 10,000 worth of airtime to help kick-start their businesses.
“Following the successful conclusion of the summits, and the overwhelmingly positive response we received from the first season of the BYOB TV Show, we decided to renew our partnership with Standard Group. We believe that this partnership will deliver great value for the brand and allow us to reach our target audience through a mix of channels that is critical to the success of the show,” said Ms. Mulinge.
The show will air every Monday for 10 weeks, with nine episodes being pre-recorded and the grand finale, to be held on 8th April 2018, being aired live.
“We at Standard Group are extremely excited to be renewing this partnership, which we believe has been of great mutual benefit to us, to Safaricom and most importantly to our audience. Our programming is designed to appeal to an increasingly youthful audience and because we’re constantly looking for great, high quality local content, the BLAZE BYOB TV Show is a perfect match for us,” said Joe Munene, Managing Director Broadcast Division – Standard Group.
BLAZE is a sub-brand of Safaricom and was created to give the youth aged 26 years and below products, services and benefits tailored specifically to meet their everyday needs.
A first of its kind platform in Kenya, East and Central Africa, BLAZE was founded on what Kenyan youth say is most important to them: freedom, empowerment and success.
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