The Africa Channel & AfricaXP Tie Up

LOS ANGELES: U.S.-based network The Africa Channel (TAC) has partnered with AfricaXP in a deal that sees the content distributor become the channel’s exclusive supply agent, while the two companies have also agreed to launch a new channel for Africa.

AfricaXP will serve as the exclusive supply agent of content from African producers for The Africa Channel. According to the agreement, AfricaXP will play a content sourcing and development role for TAC, managing all aggregation, quality control and delivery logistics.

Additionally, the companies are partnering to launch a premium African entertainment channel for the continent that is targeted to come to market this June or July. AfricaXP will build, manage, play out and deliver the feed for the new joint-venture channel to broadcasters in Africa and globally over IP from their cloud-based channel compilation and delivery system, making regionalized and international channel feeds possible without incurring further satellite-delivery costs.

“AfricaXP’s on-the-ground presence and experience with content aggregation logistics significantly streamlines our content acquisition and development operations in a dynamic but fragmented and challenging environment,” said Narendra Reddy, the executive VP of content and global operations at The Africa Channel. “By partnering with AfricaXP on a premium channel launch in Africa, and having access to their cloud-based channel compilation and delivery system, we will be able to expand by focusing our investment on developing African content assets, which is where we really want to play.”

Craig Kelly, AfricaXP’s founder and CEO, commented, “AfricaXP is a proponent of supporting African content development in the early stages—from concept and preproduction to in-production skills development and post-production support. We have great strategic synergies with The Africa Channel. Partnering with the definitive African channel in North America is obviously very exciting, but even more so is The Africa Channel’s approach, which is to take a long-term view and invest in African production in a way that further capacitates its suppliers and develops the industry.”

Kelly added that the new channel in Africa will not be completely parochial region by region. He said, “Localization is important because we have 54 diverse counties in Africa, but the DNA of both AfricaXP and The Africa Channel is to embrace pan Africanism—there is far more that unites Africa and the African Diaspora than divides us, and the channel will reflect this common ground by being committed to well-balanced diversity.”