Balancing Act
(London)
Russell Southwood
2 October 2008
analysis
London — Last week saw 200 African broadcasters and film-makers gather for the first genuinely pan-African conference for these two important sectors. There was a palpable excitement in the air as participants realised that the African broadcast and film industries are at a turning point with both increased audiences and investment. One recurring theme throughout the conference was the contradictory need for local content that might travel well to other countries and the relationship with the cost of international rights. Other themes (advertising, digitalisation and convergence) are picked up in stories in the news sections below. Russell Southwood reports on the consistent drum-beat for more content with people you recognize.
The conference was opened by Kenya's Prime Minister Raila Odinga who spoke of the "expanded democratic space" that was "due to an insistent media." But the politicians had no sooner left the stage than the CEO of Capital Radio, Chris Kirubi (himself a DJ) told the conference:"We need to tell our own story. If not, India and America will tell our story".
As anyone familiar with African broadcasting knows, this aspiration is generally defeated by the very cheap cost of international programming rights. Ian Fernandes, who used to head up Nation TV and now runs their Digital Division, pointed out some of the obstacles.
"Local content is six times more expensive than international programming. The way around it has been to have NGO or commercially sponsored programmes. For example, Tusker Project Fame and Celtel Challenge. But these have been so heavily branded that other advertisers don't want to participate".
The existence of common language groups like swahili might offer the mirage of a potential co-production space but even these were plagued with difficulties:"There are various variations of swahili that make it difficult for Tanzanians to understand Kenyan swahili and it is not much spoken in Uganda". Nevertheless Rwanda TV's Deputy Director Kije Mugisha pointed much later in the conference that there were 17 million people in the Great Lakes region (Burundi, DRC, Rwanda and Uganda) who understand kinyarwanda.
Ghana Broadcasting Corporation's Director of Television Kofi Bucknor took a more ambitious approach seeing Africa's public broadcasters as the key to making "a continental audience feasible". He envisaged them working together to show programmes across the continent as they had already done with Anti-AIDS programmes under the Africa Broadcast Media Programme. This would increase "public value" access across the continent. However, he opened his speech by saying that his background was in the private sector and that working for GBC was one of the hardest things that he'd done. So this approach is inevitably not without its own problems.
David Kimotho, Director of Operations for Kenya's new news channel K24 and KFM pointed out that one of the problems was the broadcasters rather unchanging approach to programming through the day:"TV formats are generally similar. It's entertainment with 2-3 news bulletins".
Another speaker was David Campbell, producer of successful Kenyan programme Makutano Junction now in its eighth season: its audiences have gone from 3.9 million in 2006 to 6.9 million in 2008. He made a carefully articulated commercial argument using audience data to show that local programmes both attract audience share individually and build higher levels of overall channel market share. His approach to local programming involved staying close to his audience's information needs: issues raised in the programme attracted 20,000 SMS requests for leaflets every week and the company has a database of 30,000 audience members.
He argued that television channels in Kenya were now able to reach far more people than the country's fragmented radio sector. The proportion of people saying they had watched TV in the last seven days has gone up from 32% in 2002 to 64% in 2004.
He pointed out that in his view the middle class Kenyans responsible for making programming and advertising decisions colluded in downgrading the idea of local programmes:" C2s and Ds are not interested in Mexican soaps and Prison Break. These audiences are largely served by KBC and Citizen TV. Advertising is aimed at AB socio-economic groups and this is reflected in programming choices like Prison Break".
In response to an audience question, Saracen Media Partner Lenny Nganga confirmed that some clients overrode its planning advice to choose particular ad placements on a subjective basis. He pointed out that TV channels have to build strong brands and create new audiences because attention is the new currency.
Again with the use of audience data, Steadman's Director of Media Monitoring Joe Otin told participants:"Kenyan programmes pull more audiences than foreign content: there are the examples of Tusker Fame Project, Inspekta Mwda, Taludi High and Papa Shuvandula. This is an argument to advertisers for programme innovation".
One of the bravest speakers at the conference was the Director of Kenyan production company Big Ideas who have recently been commissioned by MNet to do a drama series. He pointed that it was difficult locally to get scriptwriters who had genre skills in depth: everyone was a "jack-of-all-trades" as there is so little local work. This put production companies into a bind:" Broadcasters say to us: How do we know the ideas you're putting to us are going to work? This series will establish a reputation for what we do".
Joe Hundah, Director of Operations, MNet crystallised what was is changing in the African broadcast sector by describing its contribution to local content. The company has created MNet West and MNet East to allow for some degree of localisation. Its New Directions initiative has seen 44 films produced. But Hundah echoed more sharply the point made many times:"The costs for one hour of local drama is the same price as for one hour of Oprah. But we need content appreciated across Africa"
In 2003 DStv created Africa Magic channel. Hundah wryly remembered that:" it was criticised for poor production values but it has created Nollywood stars. You can now buy Nollywood DVDs in New York. Producers have to see beyond their own shores. Africans would prefer to watch things about themselves with low production values than high production values with people they can't identify with. Several high-budget Nollywood movies have been made but there's no evidence that they have done any better." It has launched a new channel, Africa Magic Plus which is designed to be a channel that encourages African content from outside Nigeria. It was hard to fault the list of things he wanted African Governments should to do to change things: fighting piracy; giving tax breaks for production; and finding the funds to encourage filming. Finally he said that African film-makers should "produce at costs you can afford".
Indeed in the opening ceremony, Minister of Information and Communications Samuel Poghiso promised: "We are developing a policy to develop the film sector" and Prime Minister Raila Odinga had set the stage for this by claiming:"We can make this place the Hollywood of Africa." You can't fault him on ambition.
MTV Networks Africa's MD Alex Akosi pointed out how local content was now part of a global dialogue, particularly for youth:"Africa is a young continent and the demographic is vast. 60% of the continent is under 25. Youth culture permeates across all continents. It's a global phenomenon. You don't have to be in a loin cloth to define yourself as an African". He pointed out that the training initiative (see Content news below) it had run had improved local skills to produce music videos:" Nigeria used to produce the worst music videos, now we're trying to limit the number in order to stay Pan-African". As with football, Africa needs to work out how to take advantage of its participation in the global market for ideas and content.
As perceptions of Africa change, it is drawing in new investment. Al Jazeera's Director Global Distribution told the conference that it was developing a news centre in Nairobi that would tell Africa's story from a "global south" perspective and that by this month its English-language channel would be reaching 15 million households across the continent.
If local content was hard to get, various speakers at the conference made the case that they were being locked out of access to various rights by the "new kids on the block", the Pay TV companies. But as ever with villains and heroes, the matter is slightly more complex.
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