CANAL+ & iROKO to Launch SVOD for French-Speaking Africa

PARIS: CANAL+ Group and iROKO have partnered in a multimillion-euro deal to launch the first Francophone SVOD service for French-speaking Africa.

Set to launch in the coming months, the Android app will be aimed at building a new mobile-only subscriber base across Francophone Africa. CANAL+ Group now owns and airs the largest catalogue of African content for French-speaking Africa. The app will be fully translated into French and all content will be in French.

Jacques du Puy, the president of CANAL+ Overseas, said, “Now that CANAL+ is close to having 2 million pay-TV households in Africa, our ambition is to widen our audience to those whose mobile is the main entertainment device. iROKO’s original approach integrating popular content production and mobile SVOD perfectly matches our group’s entertainment vision in French-speaking Africa. This will also allow us to make more accessible the contents that we specifically produce and design for the African market.”

Jason Njoku, CEO of iROKO, added, “iROKO has been committed to leading viewers to content they will love and CANAL+ OVERSEAS shares our vision, translated into French. CANAL+ has over 20 years’ experience of delivering content to Francophone Africa, we have an unrivaled Nollywood content catalogue and have pioneered VOD in Africa. Together, we will be giving the many millions of French-speaking Nollywood and telenovela fans unprecedented access to content that has previously been inaccessible. We believe truly amazing, yet affordable content is the right balance to strike in Sub-Saharan Africa and this deal is testament to that.”