Noel Grima
From a very cramped small flat in Vincenti Buildings, Valletta, Where’s Everybody? has now moved to new premises near Appogg on the road leading to St Luke’s Hospital.
The premises welcome you into what is now the new corporate face of Where’s Everybody? (WE). To introduce us to this new identity was a young (28-year-old), straight-talking, account graduate – Janet Bonanno Silvio, WE’s new general manager.
What is happening to Where’s Everybody?
The long and short of it is that WE is carrying out a restructuring – or rather a structuring – exercise and moving ahead. WE was set up as a television programme company way back in 1999 by Peppi Azzopardi, Lou Bondi and PJ Vassallo on the strength of Azzopardi’s and Bondi’s reputations as television presenters. The partnership has now extended its services in a number of areas – marketing, public relations, advertising and consultancy, events – creating WE’s own ‘house of brands’.
As Janet said, “WE’s human resources is of such high calibre that it can go further, exploring new opportunities and projects, eventually beyond the media field.
“Apart from our human resources, I feel that our strength lies in our track record, from Xarabank to Bondiplus, from Strina to the Classic Rock Festival, from the EU entry celebrations to the CHOGM opening ceremony. WE strives to be market leaders and have good foundations on which to build.”
This TV season, apart from producing PBS’ flagship television programmes Xarabank and Bondiplus, WE has also produced two new programmes, U l-Kotra qamet f’daqqa u ghajtet, a satirical programme aired on Tuesdays after Bondiplus and Tikka (fuq kollox), featured every day just before the eight o’clock news. Apart from new programmes, WE is also venturing in the field of musical productions and training courses.
The three partners have now agreed that it is time for the company to ‘get corporate’. The company had been run by its ‘mad’ founders (Lou Bondi’s words) for far too long, and with the company now employing 35 people and diversifying into subsidiary companies, it was time to put in a new structure, which is where Janet came in.
Janet graduated as an accountant in 2001 and spent six years working in the audit field. Apart from working in the audit field, she spent nearly three years with Dhalia Group of Companies, working up to the post of Administration Manager.
WE and the media was a step in the dark for Janet. But she has taken on her new role as WE’s general manager with great enthusiasm. She feels that a corporate structure is essential to coordinate, oversee and manage the accounts, administration and IT functions of the company. By doing so, she will be relieving the directors from these humdrum but essential roles, which will give them more time to be what they are really good at: creative.
WE is a young team, with a lot of energy and potential, she feels.
There is widespread perception that WE is a politically-biased company that gets its high-profile programmes through its political connections. Janet accepts the perception is there, but if people were to view WE’s programmes without bias, they would find them objective. Incidentally, she adds, no political party has ever taken a case against WE to the Broadcasting Authority. Besides, she added with a knowing smile, the company is certainly not partisan in its intake – some of its best human resources came from Super One and they chose to work at WE.