Sabah-based TV channel proposal a positive move – Iking
by Mariah Doksil. Posted on January 28, 2012, Saturday
Daphne and Azmi
KOTA KINABALU: The proposal to have a Sabah-based TV channel is a positive move as Sabah has such beautiful and diverse cultural background of different languages, culture and traditions.
A Malaysian personality, an emcee and an occasional actress Dahlia Daphne Eleanor Mozes Iking said music, dance and legends in Sabah were unique and was yet to be explored and exposed.
“Having a dedicated channel to showcase the beauty and talent of our culture and people would not just give an economical advantage to the artistes, TV and film producers of our state but allows other states or countries to understand better the heritage of what we have to offer with this specially dedicated channel.
“With regards to the sentiments of some artistes who feel slighted with ‘negative comments’ coming from the folk here in ‘semenanjung’, take it with a pinch of salt. Perhaps it’s just purely coincidence,” she told The Borneo Post yesterday when asked to respond to a recent statement from artistes in the state who believed that a Sabah-based TV channel would be the best platform to nurture singing talents among Sabahans.
The 33-year-old former Unduk Ngadau (beauty queen) who grew up in Penampang also said she received super warm response from her friends in Kuala Lumpur and they loved Sabah and Sarawak.
“They love how we communicate (the Sabah slang); in fact if Sabah TV ever takes off, the main language should be the Sabahan Malay that is understood by all Sabahans,” she added during an online interview.
Daphne played a con-woman in Belukar, a Malaysian independent film released in 2010 and won the national ‘Most Promising Actress’ for the role.
She was the co-host of TV3′s Ringgit Sense, host of reality show Explorace, in 2004 for two years, then went on to host PNB World Investment Challenge on TV3, Vector Challenge on 8TV, Explorace Kids on TV3 and Health and Beauty Capsule in May/Antabax. She also reported for the Brand and TV3 documentary Majalah Tiga.
In 2006 she gained a supporting role as ‘Daphne’ in TV8 drama series KL Lights. With Nazrudin Rahman, she hosted My Australian Adventure as a travelogue on TV3. Later that year she moved to NTV 7 and hosted The Breakfast Show. She was a supporting actress in a tele-movie Adik in 2007 and played a minor role in a Singaporean drama, District 9 Pilot.
In 2009, Iking was nominated in the Malaysian Shout! Awards as the host of the Breakfast Show and currently hosts the new talk show, Bella.
Meanwhile, her manager and business partner Azmi Abdul Rahman said Sabah artistes should stop having a ‘subsidy’ mentality, that everything would come to you without effort.
“You can’t wait for the peninsular folk to help set it (Sabah TV) up. Just go for it.
“You also need to dampen the notion that the ‘semenanjungs’ are looking down on you if you think you are good. Go ahead and show your talent. There is definitely more than enough talent in Sabah,” he said.
Azmi added that Sabahans should look at local singing reality shows where the good ones often came from Sabah and Sarawak.
Both Daphne and Azmi are working on projects like 2REDchairs (www.2redchairs.tumblr.com), a street discussion on so-called taboo subjects, like religion, trans-gender and homosexuality.
On January 20, representatives of local artistes, Janrywine J.Lusin and Jimmy Palikat, in a joint press conference shared their concerns and support for a proper TV channel that Sabahans can watch and listen as an option to the entertainment industry in Malaysia.
Lusin said Sabah should have her own TV channel immediately as a platform to expose the singing talents of Sabahans and not just to upload them on the Internet because entertainment in Sabah deserves to be watched.
Meanwhile, Jimmy who is famous for his song, ‘Tanak Kampung’ which has been translated into Kelantanese, Bidayuh and even adopted into a Rock version by one of the bands in Peninsular Malaysia, said it was not fair to treat Sabahans as a stepchild in the Malaysian music industry, especially when they were equally talented as those in the peninsula.
Palikat said his single ‘Tanak Kampung’ took more than one year to reach out to the whole country because there was no platform to promote, unlike songs from the peninsula that could easily be promoted on TVs and national radios because most channels were peninsula-based.
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