V I D E O • A G E AP R I L 2 0 1 1 28 Addressing the South African Parliament in February 1960, the then British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan told his audience that, “a wind of change is sweeping through Africa.” Exactly 51 years later, a wind of opportunity now sweeps through the continent’s audiovisual content industry. With an all time record attendance of 439 participants, including representatives from every U.S. major, and all of Latin America’s top telenovela suppliers, the fifth DISCOP Africa, held in Ghanaian capital Accra early last February, reflected such opportunities in the sub-Saharan region. But the headline numbers are not the whole story, since DISCOP generated major deals such as that signed between John De Mol’s Talpa Media and Modern Africa Productions under which the latter will co-produce all of Talpa’s formats in several African countries. But the really hard evidence of the opportunity that is mushrooming in sub-Saharan Africa was to be found on the market floor, with the demand for content from an ever-growing array of new outlets. One such outlet searching DISCOP Accra for new product was MC-TV in the form of managing director Jamal Conteh. Conteh has six years experience in broadcasting in Sierra Leone, the last four of which saw him serve as executive director of ABC-TV in that country. Now he has established MC-TV to act, in his words, “as a broker between content suppliers and advertisers and sponsors.” MC-TV is due to go to air in May, and, says Conteh, he already has demand from advertisers and sponsors for, “good quality kids, educational programming, fashion, news and current events and sport.” Traditionally, Sierra Leone mostly acquires programming from the major English-language markets and from neighboring West African countries, and illustrating this, MC-TV has already acquired educational programming on avoiding HIV from MTV, a raft of Nigerian movies (Nollywood is Africa’s largest center of feature film production and one of the largest in the world) as well as Indian drama series and movies and Shades of Sin, a telenovela from Ivory Coast-based Côte Ouest, Africa’s largest independent distributor. Also in Accra seeking programming for a start up was Adedayo Ouholowu of Nigeria’s Ajala TV. Ajala TV is a wholly owned subsidiary of Ajala Travel, of which Ouholowu is co-founder and CEO, and so it is not surprising that Ajala TV is set to launch a niche travel channel. In fact the company is already up and running, having launched a branded block on leading Nigerian Pay operator HiTv last month, with the full launch of the channel slated for June. Although the parent company is focused on travel in Nigeria, Ouholowu told VideoAge in Accra that, “Ajala TV will cover worldwide tourism,” adding, “the Nigerian tourist is sophisticated and a diet of Kenyan safaris and Lagos beaches simply won’t work, so we will present a range of destinations and travel options, but targeted at an African viewer.” Like MC-TV’s Conteh, Ouholowu foundDISCOPAccra useful, signing up 30 hours of programming and telling VideoAge that, “we are also close to signing deals with Off The Fence and Deutsche Welle totaling about 40 hours of programming between them.” So far, DISCOP Africa is the only market the fledgling Ajala TV has attended, but with the branded block up and running on HiTv and the date of the full launch quickly approaching, the plan is, per Ouholowu, to, “attend both MIP and MIPCOM this year.” A regular visitor to all three markets is Hannelie Beker, the buyer for Kenya’s Wananchi. Wananchi is a triple play provider in the East Africa country, and Beker, who regularly visits all three markets, professes a preference for DISCOP Africa. She toldVideoAge why: “The key thing about DISCOP Africa for me,” she explained, “is that Africa is not marginal, and this is good for both buyers and sellers. Also,” she continued, “it is a much better venue for me for networking. When I am in Cannes all I ever see are sellers as it is such a frenetic market. However, at DISCOP Africa, I have much more time to network with my peers from other broadcasters.” VideoAge caught up with Beker on day one of DISCOP Africa, and so, unsurprisingly, she had not yet closed any deals, although she did report having had, “a number of very promising conversations.” Nonetheless, Beker estimates that around 25 percent of her total annual purchases are made at, or as a direct result of, the DISCOP Africa markets. Wananchi is looking to plug a yawning demand for content in East Africa. At the moment the area is rife with content piracy, but, Beker believes, “this is because there is a huge demand for content that is currently not being met by adequate distribution channels and outlets. There are,” she explained, “currently no cinemas and no retail outlets for DVD. But,” she continued, “as the cost of both broadband and access to Pay packages fall, and we continue to offer a range, quality and choice that is simply not available on FTA, the emerging Kenyan middle class will readily pay for legitimate access. This is the market we are aiming for.” One of the key factors in the Kenyan content market was the completion a year or so ago of an undersea fiber running the entire length of the African East coast, from the Arabian Gulf to South Africa, carrying voice, data and video. But this is by no means the only significant investment in infrastructure in subSahara’s audiovisual content business. SES, the Luxembourg-based satellite behemoth, is in the process of making a substantial investment in satellite capacity for the sub-Saharan region. An investmentestimatedbyTheoAsampong, regional director, North, Central and West Africa, “to be in excess of U.S.$1 billion, expanding or replacing, our existing fleet of seven satellites dedicated to sub-Saharan Africa.” Asampong underlined the reason SES is making such a commitment by illustrating subSaharan Africa’s potential for expansion in terms of television homes. The region has around 220 million homes of which only about 80 million currently have a television, as opposed to 240 million homes in Western Europe, of which around 230 million have television, although television is not the only potential for expansion identified by the company; it also sees great potential for the V-Sat market, which is used to service point to point transmission, typically mobile telephony. However, TV is the immediate priority. AsChristophLimmer, seniordirector, Marketing and Market Development, Africa pointed out whenVideoAge spoke with the SES team at Accra, “Most of the existing channels have realized they want to go digital and reach the whole population and that satellite is by far the most cost effective means of doing this, and it is also the means offering the best spread. Additionally, there are a lot of new players entering the market. Whereas two years or so ago, it was mostly talk, now there are concrete plans. I am confident that there will be a boom in demand over the next three years or so from many new players and that we have the expertise, the infrastructure and the investment to meet that demand.” BJ Africa’s Continued Television Growth D i s c o p A f r i c a THE PRICE IS RIGHT, BUT BOUND TO INCREASE Across a continent with 52 countries of vastly different sizes and wealth, and each with an increasing range of broadcasters of differing scope and ambition, prices are bound to vary considerably. There is also a great difference among prices paid for differing genres. Sport is easily the most popular, and with few exceptions — rugby and cricket in South Africa, cricket and track in Kenya and wrestling in Senegal — sport really means soccer. By far the two wealthiest broadcast markets are South Africa and Nigeria, and for most genres these markets would equate to one of the smaller European markets. However, the last English Premier League deal in Nigeria went for a reported U.S.$100 million for all matches over three years. Other than this, a general rule of thumb for most other subSaharan markets would be in the range $250-$350 per hour with some very good drama or high-end documentary occasionally going as high as $500 per hour.
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