As Smartphones and Internet Connections Rise in Africa, So Does Entertainment Streaming (qz.com)

Growing smartphone and internet penetration across many African countries saw global streaming companies make a deeper play for audiences here this year. From a report: Netflix signaled its interest in Africa by hiring a content producer for the region and took on the MultiChoice, the continental satellite TV giant owned by Naspers, Africa's most valuable company. The Los Gatos, California company spooked MultiChoice with everything from trolling online ads to billboards placed conspicuously close to their Johannesburg headquarters. MultiChoice has clearly taken notice and has called for Netflix to be regulated. No African regulator has shown the appetite to rein Netflix in, though. Indeed, Netflix has bolstered its library of African content with a first original movie from Nigeria's Nollywood movie industry and committed to producing its first original African series.

[...] Altogether, there's clearly a growing market as content consumption habits evolve among Africa's youth -- a majority of the continent's population. For example, Nigerians are already consuming more video on mobile devices than on television. Platforms like Tv2Go, which launched in South Africa in November, are experimenting with free mobile platforms, but may find that increasingly discerning streaming audiences need binge-worthy content to attract them.

Comments

Re:Nobody cares about Africa

[Dunbal]

I think you need to look up what "genocide" actually means. Anti-white discrimination is happening, and whites are losing their rights. But I don't think whites are being lined up in front of ditches and shot just yet.

Captain Obvious speaks!

[WoodstockJeff]

As access to something becomes increasingly available, use of that something increases as well.

When you didn't have the means to stream video and music, it was, necessarily, limited.

Re:Captain Obvious speaks!

[Solandri]

Africa is an interesting case because some technologies were introduced before predecessor technologies (Star Trek prime directive fans take note). For example, wired phone lines had been installed in only a tiny part of Africa before cellular phone technology because widely available. Cellular was clearly superior, so that was adopted instead. Resulting in Africa having the highest ratio of cellular to wired phones in the world. So it's not a simple case of something being used more because it's increasingly available. They leapfrogged the rest of the world by skipping an earlier phone technology.

That we're seeing a similar leapfrogging in content that's viewed has implications for things like dictatorships, which used to control the masses by doing things like controlling TV news broadcasts. If most of the people are now getting their news from streamed international news sources, then it becomes harder for a dictator to hold on to power.

Likewise, I'm very curious to see if Hollywood's dominance of the movie industry and a handful of record companies' dominance of the music industry are inherent, or just an artifact of past technological limitations. It used to be that only a large movie/music studio could afford the cameras and recording equipment necessary to make and distribute a movie or music album. You can now do those things on your phone and upload them to YouTube. I'm of the opinion that Hollywood and the record labels are dinosaurs, using political influence to pass laws to stave off their inevitable demise. And the long-term path is a reversion to the Medieval era when entertainers worked independently instead of under the control of a studio. But that's just an opinion. It'll be interesting to see what type of cottage film and music industry develops in Africa.

Wireless capacity?

[Lije Baley]

I'm wondering how their networks will support this, assuming that they are primarily wireless. It really amazes me how much entertainment is streamed every which way across the internet compared to the efficiency of traditional broadcasts. I guess we've got fiber to burn here in the U.S., but not so much in developing countries.