Entertainment Media Increasingly Important for Africa

         As with most things in today’s global economy, services have become increasingly important. In fact, if you look at the Fortune 500 largest companies, there are more service companies and fewer manufacturers than in previous decades.  As more and more corporations add value to their core corporate offerings through services, this sector is relying on shifts from purchase to subscription models.  Many products are being transformed into services.  For example, IBM treats its business as a service business. Although it still manufactures computers, it sees the physical goods as a small part of the "business solutions" industry. Rather than just receiving a single payment for a piece of manufactured equipment, IBM and many other manufacturers are now receiving a steady stream of revenue for ongoing contracts.  The same is true for products like televisions or radios.  They are not useful without content, for which you would pay directly through subscriptions nowadays as you once paid by responding to advertising.

American economist Victor R. Fuchs coined the term “the service economy” in 1968. He believed that the United States had taken the lead in entering the service economy along with societies in the Western countries, which now have spread to developing countries such as in Africa. With the rapid development of information technology, particularly digitization, the service economy also has shown new development trends  While the services sector in Africa has focused on financial services, hospitality, retail, health, human services, information technology and education, Africa has become not only prime market for film and television streaming services, but also a rising content producer.

According to a January 17, 2022, article in The Hollywood Reporter, this could be the year when the global media industry finally starts taking Africa seriously, citing a string of recent deals among African film and television producers and global studios and streaming services, which marks a sharp change from the decades in which African talent and the African market were ignored or dismissed.  Nigerian television pioneer Mo Abdu’s company, EbonyLife Media, has been a prime beneficiary of that change, the publication reported.  In 2020, EbonyLife shut down its pan-African television channel, which was available throughout the continent, to focus on the more lucrative and growing business of content production, particularly with international streaming services.

EbonyLife was the first African media company to sign a multi-title deal with Netflix for features, such as the human trafficking drama Olutore, the domestic abuse drama Blood Sisters and the period epic Death and the King’s Horsemen, based on the 1975 play by Nigerian Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinka.  The company also produced television series such as the Nigerian legal drama Castle and Castle, about a husband and wife who operate a law firm.  The company is developing projects such as the dystopian science-fiction series Nigeria 2099 with AMC; Reclaim, a six-part heist thriller to initiate a production deal between EbonyLife and BBC Studios that follows a team of art thieves attempting to steal back Nigerian works poached by the British empire 125 years ago, and an action series developed with Sony Pictures Television about the historical all-female West African army the Dahomey Warriors, on which the fictional Dore Milaje of Marvel’s Black Panther was based.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, last year EbonyLife signed a multi-project development deal with Will and Jada Pinkett Smith’s Westbrook Studios for a slate of Africa-based series and features and successfully pitched Will Packer Productions and Universal Studios on a thriller based on the life of Nigerian Instagram celebrity and alleged fraudster Ramon Olorunwa Abbas, popularly known as Hushpuppi.

In late 2021, Amazon signed two major licensing deals with Nigeria’s Inkblot Studios and Anthill Studios, its first agreements with African production companies. Disney+, which plans to launch on the continent this year, starting with South Africa, has greenlighted Kizazi Moto: Generation of Fire, a 10-part animated anthology series, with Cape Town-based animation house Triggerfish, which will feature short films by directors from South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Uganda and Egypt.  At 2021’s Annecy Animation Festival, Disney unveiled the first images for Iwáú, a science-fiction series steeped in Nigeria’s Yoruba culture and produced with pan-African studio Kugali Media. On the live-action side, Disney is backing Greek Freak, a feature from Nigerian director Akin Omotoso about NBA star Giannis Antetokounmpo, born in Athens to Nigerian parents.

Netflix, whose service accounts for more than half of the continent’s streaming subscriptions, debuted its first African originals in 2020, beginning with South African spy thriller Queen Sono and Cape Town teen drama Blood and Water. Netflix’s first Nigerian commission, which premiered last August, was King of Boys: The Return of the King, a seven-part series sequel to Kemi Adetiba’s hit 2018 gangster drama King of Boys and featuring Nollywood star Sola Sobowale as a ruthless mafioso-style businesswoman. In 2020, Netflix signed a development deal with John Boyega’s UpperRoom Productions to produce non-English films set in West and East Africa. The streamer’s current African slate ranges from science-fiction animated series Team 4 and the historic drama Amina — which premiered last November and became the first Nigerian title to make Netflix’s global top 10 list — to A Naija Christmas, billed as the first African Christmas movie.

Nollywood (the Nigerian film industry) took over second place in terms of global film production in 2009 behind Bollywood (the Indian film industry).  However, that is in terms of the number of films released.  Neither has rivaled the amount of earnings for films or the prestige of the American film and television industry.  The U.S. media and entertainment industry is the largest in the world at $660 billion (of the $2 trillion global market), despite enduring an estimated $53B or 7.3% decline due to the pandemic since 2020.  However, the increase in streaming services and subscriptions for digital media during the pandemic has been a boon for the streaming of movies and television shows, video games and downloadable music sectors, while live performance and touring have been forced to pivot or shutter, as physical interactions declined.  The coincidence of rising video on demand and increased African film and television production through mainstream platforms promises to change all that.

In the past, Nollywood productions were considered low quality and were direct-to-video productions sold in convenience stores.  They were targeting Nigerian audiences so they reflected local cultures and mores.  Nollywood production was keyed to quick, short videos for little profit, so attracting high-quality stars was difficult after they experienced rushed shooting schedules, subpar scripts and below Hollywood standard pay. Nigerian actors realized they could make much more and received greater notoriety in Hollywood. But now, Nigerian and other African film and television productions are designed to appeal to broader global audiences.  For example, the South African production Queen Sono is high production quality with lots of location changes to various countries and has gotten good reviews.  An increase in quality, funding, profits and notoriety will much more easily attract top talent, especially since actors in Hollywood are no longer bound by the long, exclusive studio contracts of the old days.  Over the years, African actors and actresses like Danai Gurira, Lupita Nyong'o, Peter Mensah, Charlize Theron, Djimon Hounsou, and others have appeared in numerous blockbuster movies and in American television programs.  Meanwhile, African-American actors such as Isaiah Washington, Kimberly Elise, Vivica A. Fox and Nia Long have appeared in African productions.

Nigeria and South Africa currently are the lead production sources of African film and television. For example, Nigeria’s film industry produces an estimated 2,500 films annually and employs more than one million people, making it one of Nigeria’s largest employers. The industry is positioned in a few major production centers like Lagos, Onitsha, Enugu, Asaba and Abuja. The distribution of the films hinge on these same production centers as well as other major distribution points in Nigeria such as Aba. There is some diversity in film production in Nigeria due to the country’s multilingual nature. The majority of films are produced in English, while others are produced in Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa, and other indigenous languages. As a result, there are sub industries within Nigeria’s Nollywood one of which is Kannywood; the local film industry for the Hausa speaking part of Nigeria. 

The consumer market for movies and television in Africa also have attracted interest from outside.  Spurred by a young population and increasing internet connectivity, it is gaining a larger audience and beginning to receive record amounts of funding.  For example, demand for pay-tv continues to grow in South Africa, and provider Multichoice (DSTV) leads the way with regional content rights. DSTV has more than 200 channels, ranging from entertainment, sport, music, religion, language, etc. It is the largest pay TV company in the region, partly due to buying the rights to host premium sporting events. MultiChoice has partnered with Amazon and Netflix to offer their over-the-top (OTT) services through its hardware. With the decrease in internet connection costs and increase in access, OTT/streaming platforms are available to more consumers. The top five streaming platforms in South Africa are Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Showmax, Curiosity Stream and Apple TV. As local content remains important in gaining viewership, streaming video on demand services like Netflix have started to offer both local and international content. 

Kenya has long used film as part of its tourism marketing efforts as a safari destination of choice. The country, long famed for its wildlife locations and other spectacular physical landscapes, benefited from the global success of The Lion King and historically iconic productions such as Lara Croft, Born Free and Sense 8  have been filmed on Kenyan locations. But the whole cinema ecosystem was dramatically affected by the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus, which caused the Kenyan market to contract sharply.  However, Kenya has a growing film production industry, popularly dubbed Riverwood, and the country’s film market has seen leaps and bounds with increased adoption of video on demand, widened broadband and smartphone access coupled with a strong consumer market, opportunities are emerging. Mobile broadband penetration is more than 80%, the highest in sub-Saharan Africa.

According to Quartz Africa, the continent offers massive opportunities for video entertainment brands if they can figure out how to crack the audience. Cheaper smartphones, expanding internet connectivity, faster internet speeds, an increasing array of connected devices, and an expected population boom mean revenue alone from music streaming in Africa is expected to grow to $493 million by 2025.  Streaming also has also opened up a new battleground in film and TV, which for decades has been dominated by local stations that have acted as the main distributors of content. Local broadcasters and mobile phone networks are now investing money into platforms that are buying, funding and distributing visual content. US companies, seeing a saturated market at home, are eyeing the market too, with Netflix and Disney, as mentioned earlier, leading the way in investing in original material from the continent.

Quartz Africa further reports that African entertainment startups had their best funding year even in the midst of the pandemic, raising a total of $13.9 million in 2020, almost 19 times what the sector had raised the previous year and nearly 116 times what it had secured in 2018, according to a report by Disrupt Africa, a website for news on African tech startups. The money came mostly from local and foreign venture capital firms.  Disrupt Africa attributes this growth in part to Africans having more money to spend than in decades past. “Spending power is growing, entertainment startups are increasingly succeeding where others failed, and investors are looking for opportunities beyond busy spaces like fintech, health, and e-commerce,” Tom Jackson, the website’s co-founder, told Quartz. “There was always going to be a drip-down effect, and we are starting to see it.”

Nevertheless, a longstanding problem for African entertainment platforms is that many countries have weak copyright laws and poor enforcement of these laws. Piracy is rife, getting in the way of artists and filmmakers trying to monetize their work. The presence of more distribution platforms, which are compensating artists, is helping to address this challenge, but everything depends on timing.  If regulatory and transparency issues are too problematic in the near term, as they have been in the past, it can frustrate artists, production companies and investors and thwart the current boom in video entertainment in Africa.  So, quick action to identify and eliminate problems is vital.  Additionally, greater publicity of the advances in the African film and television industry will be critical in sustaining and expanding this growth.

As more American travel to Africa and experience its people, cultures, clothing, food, landscape and wildlife, they return home eager to continue their taste of Africa.  These new media offerings can accelerate the American desire to visit the continent, which then feeds an expanded pool of Americans having a desire to recreate the experience of Africa when they return, as well as a heightened interest in doing business on the continent.  It also can spark a greater recognition of the African Diaspora surrounding them at home, which would boost commercial possibilities for African-themed businesses and products in the United States.  In the long run, this media development promises to forge greater affinity and linkages between Africans and Americans – benefiting both sides.