Savannah Maziya has been appointed chief executive officer of the African Broadcast Network, a pan-African TV network launched in January this year.

South Africa-based ABN currently operates a one-hour primetime feed to GTV (Ghana), KBC (Kenya), AIT (Nigeria), ITV (Tanzania), ZNBC (Zimbabwe) and ZBC (Zambia), but is poised to expand with a further two-hour slot and add affiliates in three other countries.

It is also readying a package of African feature films for continental broadcast. These include: Idrissa Ouedragogo's Le Cri Du Coeur, Adama Drabo's Taafe Fanga, Merzak Allouache's Bab El Oued City, Flora Gomes' Blue Eyes Of Yonta, Mahmoud Zemmouri's Honour Of The Tribe and Prends 10 000 Balles Et Casse Toi, Ousmane Sembene's The Curse (Xala) and Le Mandat (Mandabi), Med Hondo's Sarraouinnia, Euzhan Palcy's Sugar Cane Alley, Michael Raeburn's The Grass Is Singing, John Badenhorst's Slavery Of Love and Kwate Nee-Owoo and Kwesi Wusu's Ama.

Under Maziya and production head Letebele Jones, ABN is also poised to develop its own strand of local programming. "ABN's expanding programming capabilities as well as the strong relationships we continue to build with producers and distributors on a global scale are positive indicators of continued growth and long-term success," said Maziya.

A former advertising executive with Leo Burnett, Maziya was recently president of trading outfit SPOP Group and before that had experience with CBS and minerals giant Gencor.