The Africa Channel (TAC) presented the panel Exporting African Content to the World at DISCOP Johannesburg, with Steve Adams, a partner at the full-service media company Buffalo 8, leading executives in a debate about how to upend the low demand for the content the continent has to offer.<\/p>\n
Brendan Gabriel, VP of production and creative director for The Africa Channel, is quick to acknowledge that the West has long dominated the content game, but believes that OTT platforms are proving to be a game-changer. \u201cThere\u2019s so much here that needs to be told,\u201d Gabriel says, referring to Africa. \u201cThe time is now with the OTT platforms that have opened it up for all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Agreeing with Gabriel is Cactus Tree Entertainment co-founder Liz Levenson, who believes that streamers deserve some credit for people around the world becoming excited to get new points of view. \u201cFrom a storytelling perspective, the international marketplace is opening up to new ideas and places,\u201d says Levenson, adding that there\u2019s new interest in formats from all over the world.<\/p>\n
Ben Amadasun, who recently joined Netflix as its director of licensing for Africa, finds it a privilege to be able to start buying African content for the global streamer. \u201cHow we see our content for a Netflix point of view, we\u2019re looking at how it does in Africa. Stories that are authentic, there is always a place for them around the world,\u201d says Amadasun, who has found that people from around the globe want to watch content from other countries. He\u2019s now telling the producers, \u201cDon\u2019t worry about having European or American actors; people want to see authentic stories from the continent.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Africa Channel\u2019s business is focused largely outside of the continent, serving the wants and needs of the approximately 150 million of the African Diaspora of which roughly 50 percent speak English and the other half largely speaking a mix of French, Portuguese or Spanish. \u201cIf you look at the trends in immigration [in the Americas], one in 11 people were of African origin,\u201d says Narendra Reddy, executive VP and general manager at The Africa Channel. \u201cBy 2050, that will be one in six. There is a big demand for content that will increase. It\u2019s time for Africa to play on the world stage.\u201d<\/p>\n
20th Century Fox\u2019s Reena Singh is seeing a shift in viewership from multiculturalism to polyculturalism. \u201cPolyculturalism is when the individuals embrace their identity and are seeking out the content of people who look and act like themselves,\u201d Singh explains. \u201cInstead of saying, I\u2019m Indian or Italian, polyculturalism is, I\u2019m Indian, I\u2019m Italian and French and I\u2019m proud of all of it and seeking ties to all of them.\u201d She adds that in a few years, the under-18 population in the U.S. will be a majority-minority population. \u201cThis generation is looking for more diverse content. Not that just speaks to their own identity, but to other cultures, [creating] a lot of possibilities for other cultures to come into the mainstream in American media.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to C\u00f4te Ouest CEO Bernard Azria, what travels well around the world comes down to one thing: good-quality content. \u201cWhen I\u2019m saying good-quality content, I\u2019m not talking about traditional values, I\u2019m talking about content that tells a story,\u201d says Azria. \u201cAt the end of the day, our business is to create and sell emotion. Emotion doesn\u2019t have a border, a skin color.\u201d Azri adds, \u201cYes, we must export African content. Yes, there is an international market that needs to be conquered. Just do it. I don\u2019t know what we\u2019re debating about. There\u2019s no debate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over at Discovery, the company works in factual content in what Henry Windridge, head of brand for the Middle East and Africa, refers to as \u201ckey passion verticals.\u201d Already international in having launched in 220 territories around the world, Discovery seeks projects that can travel. Among them is Hitched<\/em>, a series that follows the search for Mokele-Mbembe, a legendary creature of Congo folklore. It \u201cmatched Discovery’s content curiosity,\u201d says Windridge. \u201cOther markets wanted to take it; it didn\u2019t matter where it came from.\u201d In terms of Africa-based cookery shows, Windridge points out that because African cuisine is so broad and that the shows match the passion-based real-life content Discovery is known for, the programs can work in Asia, Italy, the U.K. and elsewhere.<\/p>\n As The Africa Channel\u2019s Reddy puts it, the key is the kind of content \u201cthat feels local with a global aesthetic.\u201d He adds, \u201cA challenge is, How do you take that storytelling that\u2019s prevalent in Africa [elsewhere]? There\u2019s tons of content being produced. It\u2019s figuring out what are the tricks that can be added, layered to that content to make it saleable. Unscripted tends to travel more easily\u2014food, fashion, music, sports and news. (We don\u2019t do sports because we can\u2019t afford it.) Lifestyle content travels. We\u2019ve done a lot of lifestyle shows we\u2019ve sold to other networks and hopefully will sell to other colleagues on this panel.\u201d<\/p>\n Reddy\u2019s The Africa Channel colleague Gabriel adds, \u201cA lot of the content that\u2019s produced in Africa is produced for very local clients.\u201d He believes that\u2019s what needed is \u201cputting in the effort in production value to bring it up to something that makes it exportable. When we have a studio try to take those concepts to the U.S. or U.K. markets, we\u2019re competing with the Steven Spielbergs and Ava DuVernays. We\u2019re small and niche, how do we leverage that? Starting from a grassroots level.\u201d<\/p>\n For Levenson, it comes back again to perspective. \u201cWhat new perspective are you bringing that is different from what everyone else has? For South African producers, there\u2019s access to character, story and interesting things happening here that haven\u2019t been touched by the Spielbergs.\u201d<\/p>\n Gabriel finds that in terms of scripted programming, writing and character depth are vital. \u201cThings that aren\u2019t cliche that we haven\u2019t seen before, bringing in the muscle for scripting,\u201d Gabriel lists off. \u201cIf we\u2019re going to break in, we need to bring the muscle in the scripting, character and plot.\u201d At Netflix, Amadasun has seen how big a difference editing can make after giving a producer the chance to take two more stabs at a full screener that resulted in a version with the quality to match the projects’ top-notch promo.<\/p>\n C\u00f4te Ouest\u2019s Azria isn\u2019t fully convinced that Africa is ready to export its content, rather believing that effort should first be made to create content that can cross borders within Africa. \u201cApparently it\u2019s clear to everyone that there\u2019s a worldwide international market. It\u2019s ready to be conquered by everyone,\u201d says Azria. \u201cAre we, African actors, ready to conquer it? Definitely not. Do we have the capacity? No. Do we have the professional ability? No. Are we strong enough? No.\u201d He adds, \u201cOnce the industry is mature enough and can control its domestic market, it will reach a certain level. If it wants to go further, my advice is to speak to your neighbor before speaking to your uncle.\u201d<\/p>\n Begging to differ is The Africa Channel\u2019s Reddy. \u201cI think the world is becoming a smaller place. You don’t necessarily have to have your content travel from South Africa to Ghana before traveling from South Africa to London. I think there is an opportunity for African content to travel outside of the continent.\u201d He adds, \u201cThe issue, though, is no ready distribution platforms. Producers need to be patient. Netflix and most streamers who come into Africa want to play largely in Africa. But outside of the continent, playing for Latvia or London, we believe we have to create our own distribution platforms and not be beholden.\u201d<\/p>\n Both Levenson and The Africa Channel\u2019s Gabriel suggest that collaborations could be another key to exporting African content. \u201cOur economies and markets for content are not as developed and big, and we have been primarily producing and creating for local markets,\u201d says Gabriel. \u201cThat\u2019s our bread and butter and how we survive on the continent. Thanks to streaming platforms, people are starting to see the travelability of content from developing markets and we want to participate. If all you\u2019ve known of the primary market is local, how you get that across is by collaboration.\u201d<\/p>\n From what Amadasun has seen at Netflix, African content is welcome across the globe. He\u2019s found that there’s \u201ca lot of interest in the States, Canada, France and Brazil, countries where there is a considerable Diaspora. According to Amadasun, \u201cWith localization, it makes it very seamless for the customer. We\u2019ve seen great content\u2014wherever you are, wherever it has come from\u2014wants to be consumed by people around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Africa Channel (TAC) presented the panel Exporting African Content to the World at DISCOP Johannesburg, with Steve Adams, a partner at the full-service media company Buffalo 8, leading executives in a debate about how to upend the low demand for the content the continent has to offer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1033,"featured_media":2023,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[235,453],"class_list":["post-2022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-top-stories","tag-discop-johannesburg","tag-discop-johannesburg-2019"],"yoast_head":"\n