How GOtv Nigeria is Impacting Local Content Production

Vanessa Obioha writes that digital terrestrial television has made interventions in local content production by offering viewers access to diverse programmes

Dimba Atiya has never produced a daily TV show before ‘Halita’. The content producer had mainly produced content for radio and television with a shorter life span. All of that changed when he produced ‘Halita’ for Africa Magic channels on GOtv. It was the first time he would embark on such a task. However, the success of the show made it worthwhile.

Today, Atiya is grateful to GOtv Nigeria for the opportunity and the reach the drama series enjoyed. According to him, the series gained more popularity from the GOtv platform such that when the show was moved to a premium channel, fans protested. Apart from the reach, the platform helped to showcase the contemporary northern culture to a diverse audience.

Atiya is just one of the numerous content producers who have benefited from GOtv Nigeria. Through its parent company MultiChoice Nigeria, content producers have the opportunity to showcase their stories to a wider audience due to its affordability and accessibility to low-income households in Nigeria. This includes producers of shows on GOtv such as ‘The Johnsons’ and ‘Flatmates’.

This is more evident on Big Brother Naija, the popular reality television show that has not only churned out superstars but also impacted heavily on the economy.

For the first time in 2019, a Big Brother Naija House was built in Nigeria. The new and improved facility measures about 1800sqm with an additional 250sqm for support building services such as the sickbay, laundry and artiste lounges. It was designed and built to be bigger and better than any of the Big Brother Africa or Mzansi houses.

Other upgrades for the house include the Arena where Friday night games usually held. It received a major upgrade by up to 270sqm while the live eviction show venue is about +300sqm the size of the previous house. By building the house from scratch, a lot of Nigerians gained employment as carpenters, caterers and other crew members were involved in the process.

Last year, the company revealed that it spent N3.2 billion producing the fifth season of the show. The figure did not include the grand prize worth N85 million that the eventual winner took home and excluded investments made by sponsors and other promotional and marketing expenses. The House alone was valued at N2.5 billion while One billion Naira was spent renovating it for the new season.

Despite the challenges of the pandemic last year, the organisers employed over 300 persons in the production of the show. It also provided an N400 million grant to creatives whose jobs were affected by the pandemic.

Beyond Big Brother Naija, MultiChoice Nigeria has invested N634 billion in the Nigerian economy in the past five years. About N32 billion have been channelled to the creative industry while N49 billion has been spent in original content production infrastructure, still within the same period.

From 2015 to 2019, the sum of content commissioned, produced and acquired by Africa Magic totalled $86.8 million while 404,000 lives have been impacted with jobs and viewership from M-Net, Africa Magic Super Sport, which are all available on GOtv.

Arguably, the figures aforementioned show the socioeconomic impact of the platform. Its investment in local content production is part of its goals to make local content global and at this rate, Nigerian stories may dominate the global stage.