De­siree See­baran

For six sea­sons, TV pro­duc­er/di­rec­tor/per­son­al­i­ty Lisa Wick­ham and Ja­son Williams, ra­dio/TV pre­sen­ter/joint hold­er of a Road March ti­tle were the faces of EZone, Wick­ham's wild­ly pop­u­lar re­gion­al en­ter­tain­ment show. Fans around the West In­dies and in the di­as­po­ra count­ed on the show to bring them in­ter­views with in­ter­na­tion­al en­ter­tain­ment celebri­ties, to cov­er Caribbean mu­sic fes­ti­vals and to ed­u­cate them about the sights and cul­ture of West In­di­an des­ti­na­tions. Much to every­one's dis­ap­point­ment, the show took a hia­tus for a cou­ple of years so that Wick­ham could fo­cus on in­ter­na­tion­al com­mit­ments; but it's back in fo­cus with a sev­enth sea­son for 2011 ... and a new pre­sen­ter.

"It's the same ba­sic EZone, but with a lit­tle twist, a lit­tle more edge," the show's new host 23-year-old Whit­ney Hus­bands with a mis­chie­vous smile.

"Many peo­ple think that my per­son­al­i­ty is a bit wilder than Lisa's, but the qual­i­ty of the show has to be the same or even bet­ter than it was be­fore." Hus­bands is the show's en­er­getic new host, fresh from her pre­vi­ous ex­pe­ri­ences as a pre­sen­ter for mu­sic and en­ter­tain­ment shows for oth­er lo­cal chan­nels. EZone's first episode aired on Jan­u­ary 8, but the buzz was out for a while, with video teasers cir­cling on­line weeks be­fore. Thir­teen episodes from Mi­a­mi Car­ni­val to Lon­don Car­ni­val and back to Trinidad for the world's best Car­ni­val, this sev­enth sea­son looks like a wild ride.

One clip pul­sates with the un­mis­tak­able beat of a steel band's en­gine room, over­laid by a dance­hall melody, as Hus­bands ar­rives in Mi­a­mi. The footage is high-en­er­gy, bub­bly like Hus­bands her­self; we laugh along as so­ca megas­tar Bun­ji Gar­lin teas­es her with a straight face: "Wel­come to EZone; we were here be­fore you." Even though this type of pro­gramme is rel­a­tive­ly new to Hus­bands since it's stricter in style than the shows she's used to do­ing, she's han­dling it.

Wick­ham is her new men­tor, and with her guid­ance, Hus­bands is learn­ing much more about be­ing on TV. She had to slow down her speech for the cam­era, learn how to in­ter­view in a more in depth style and how to rep­re­sent the pro­gramme brand to an in­ter­na­tion­al au­di­ence. Oh, and sit through in depth cri­tiques with her pro­duc­er; imag­ine go­ing through your on­screen ap­pear­ance frame by frame and get­ting your worst mo­ments point­ed out to you. But Hus­bands isn't of­fend­ed and she isn't fazed."Yes, you are a pre­sen­ter, but you have to learn the ba­sics be­yond, like light­ing, how my face is sup­posed to look, the colours I'm sup­posed to use. With Lisa, every­day you learn some­thing."

A vet­er­an of lo­cal tele­vi­sion, Wick­ham had been watch­ing Hus­bands since she made an on­stage faux pas while pre­sent­ing at a live show. Wick­ham saw past the mis­take to the gen­uine tal­ent and charis­ma un­der­neath, and she knew that Hus­bands was the host to rein­vent EZone. "She re­minds me of my­self," Wick­ham said. "Yes, this is a case where I'm hand­ing over my show to a young, gor­geous girl. But I am very se­cure in my own skin, so I am very will­ing to de­vel­op peo­ple like her." And Hus­bands has re­spond­ed ea­ger­ly to the men­tor­ing.

"My fo­cus is not to dis­ap­point Lisa, so I do my best to im­press her." The EZone team has filmed three episodes so far, and they are look­ing for­ward to spend­ing the rest of the sea­son cov­er­ing Trinidad Car­ni­val. As for sea­sons eight and on­ward, Hus­bands seems poised to take the 'peo­ple, places, faces, rit­u­als and tra­di­tions' of the West In­di­an di­as­po­ra to a world stage. "I'm get­ting bet­ter at my craft as a pre­sen­ter," she said, "and I am re­al­ly ex­cit­ed about the fu­ture."