This week DISCOP was in Abidjan for a francophone Africa TV market event. There was a feeling that francophones were missing out at the annual Johannesburg DISCOP event in November. So DISCOP’s founder Patrick Zuchowicki decided to do an event in Abidjan and put the whole thing together in an eye wateringly short amount of time. Russell Southwood and Sylvain Béletre went to see what was happening.
As we noted in Issue 200 when we were in Abidjan in March this year, it is shaping up to become the TV and film production hub of francophone Africa. The long awaited TV liberalisation (see details below) will give much needed added impetus to this development.
What follows below are a collection of news snippets that we both picked up over the three days:
- Digital agency owner Mohamed Diaby, Waleya did a session on Social TV. In the end of session discussion, a couple of Ivorian producers were complaining that there wasn’t any funding to do productions and buy cameras. Cedric Pierre-Louis (formerly Tele-10), VP Linear TV, iROKO told them they should behave more like Nigerians. They didn’t sit around asking where was the funding going to come from. They set about making their own films and making a living. In my view, the moaners will soon be outnumbered by the Ivorian entrepreneurs making a living from Abidjan – See below. It’s tough out there but who said it was going to be easy?
- VoD platform provider Denis Pagnac, Summview announced that it would be supplying its platform to Mo Abudu’s Ebony TV. Pixagility who are one of the biggest VoD platform providers in the French market are set to open an Abidjan subsidiary and will use fibre to supply content across the content. The usual rumours flying around about a large African mobile operator about to go big on VoD.
- AMOS Spacecom and Eutelsat have a co-operation deal on 16 and 17 degrees. Since programmes from these two satellite locations come up on the same box, there are now over 100 programmes on the platform, which is good news for consumers buying a satellite receiver with these locations.
- Hats off to Ivorian Joel-Landry Nianzou, Managing Director, Great Event TV (www.geateventtv.com) who is providing a service to conference and event organisers, filming interviews with key people.
- mci TV in Abia State, Nigeria is expanding from its cable operation to go satellite shortly, covering the whole of Nigeria.
- Afrika Toon’s Abel Kouame is one of the team running an animation business and it uses the money it generates from its advertising work to make animation feature films, the first of which – Pokou, Princesse Ashanti - will be out in July.
- In December 2015, africanews will be launched as Euronews’s dedicated African news channel.
- Pleasure to meet music producer and founder of BeBlack TV David Monsoh who along with his Sales Manager Hypolite Bouabre did a formal launch of the channel to the media.
- The Ivorian government looking to liberalise its television market in 2016, and implement regular media audience surveys. It will start piloting DTT at the end of 2015, upgrade its 35 transmission points across the country and offer 10 FTA channels and Pay TV options. There will be a call for Pay TV bids shortly. They will switch over to digital when 80% of the country is covered and there is a high adoption rate.
- Comoros and Togo state broadcasters are looking to launch new cultural TV channels targeting their youth population.
- Micromedia Marketing Limited made history in Nigeria by producing the First Telenovella Drama Series ”Taste of Love” with 150 Episodes. It is the first of its kind to be produced locally and started airing on Terrestrial, Cable, Satellite, Digital and Mobile TV in October 2014. The company also provides the telenovella drama action series "Casino". Mojisola Obabori', Brand Executive, Acquisition & Sponsorship at Micromedia Marketing Limited was at Discop with her MD to offer rights for the above programmes, with the option to get them dubbed into French or other languages.
Picture above: left, Me Affoussiata Bamba-Lamine, Communication Minister of Côte d'Ivoire. Right: Maurice Kouakou Bandama, Minister of Francophonie and Culture.
Nearly 600 people attended the market and everyone we spoke to said they found it useful to be able to do business in French with their francophone customers. So it looks like this one will be a fixture on the calendar…
Picture above, right: Bastian Grotter, co-founder, iROKO and Spark.ng.
Pictures above - left: Joaquin ITURRALDE, afp.
right: Mojisola Obabori, Brand Executive, Acquisition & Sponsorship at Micromedia Marketing Limited (Nigeria).
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Read a slightly different version in French here: Discop Africa Abidjan : >520 participants !
and in the previous edition:
J-12 pour le Discop d'Abidjan 2015 !
“Creators and Innovators in Africa at the crossroads between Culture and Technology.”
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Video Clip Interviews - This week:
The Scoop: Talk show host Salim Amin gets famous Africans to reveal themselves
Adamu Waziri on Bino and Fino, an educational childrens' animation series with its own dolls
Peter Murimi on Samuel's Truth, a documentary about a gay man from the slums of Kenya
Dmitry Shishkin on a BBC hackathon in Africa to find new ways to consume and hear its news
Obi Emelonye on his TV series The Calabash about Nigerian bankers & iROKO TV's film Thy Will Be Done
Adamu Waziri on Bino and Fino, an educational childrens' animation series with its own dolls
Emma Kaye, Bozza on raising GBP0.5 million its African content marketplace
James Brown & Michael Jackson live in Lagos - Andrew Eborn Octopus TV on performing holograms
Hypolite Bouabre on the public launch of Ivorian music producer David Monsoh's BeBlack TV
Arseny Veber, Earth TV on streaming live one of the best views in Africa to the world
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