HiTV Acquires Tinapa Studios

HiTV has acquired world- class Tinapa Studios, in a deal described by Toyin Subair, CEO, as a “milestone” in the history of Nigeria’s entertainment industry.
Eddy Ogon, Cross River State’s attorney general and commissioner for justice, who represented the governor at the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding in Calabar, was excited over the development.
Ogon was optimistic that HiTV will explore the state-of-the-art studios in a way that will be mutually beneficial not only to the parties involved but also to the people of Cross River, Nigerians and Africans at large; describing Tinapa Studios as an artistic blessing to Africa, which will make the state a Mecca of sorts for filmmakers and music producers.
Subair on his part said “Hi Media will employ the same magic it used in growing HiTV pay-TV into one of the fastest growing networks, on Tinapa Studios.”  “Nigerians should brace up, Cross Riverians should brace up because this is the dawn of a new era in Nigerian entertainment industry as Tinapa Studios is poised to bring back the lost glory in the production arm of our industry.”
Complaints about the quality of production in our movies and music according to Subair, will from mid next year when Tinapa Studios finally open for business, be of the past. “HiTV has from inception being investing in the local entertainment industry, now what we are setting out to do is to try and open the production arm of the industry so that our works will be able to compete with works from Hollywood and other places of international repute. Production quality as expected will be world-class when Tinapa finally opens early next year, that I can assure you.”
He noted that Nigerians currently go to South Africa to shoot documentaries, commercials, movies and music videos. “All that will soon stop because, whatever degree of quality you are looking for elsewhere could be found at Tinapa Studios. However, the federal government has a role to play in encouraging Nigerians to patronise a world-class studio in the heart of Nigeria because rebranding starts with Nigerians buying Nigerian goods and services.”
The HiTV boss described the acquisition of the studios as one of the fallouts of the recent rebranding that took place in HiTV which now sees it wearing the new toga of Hi Media. “We are now Hi Media, and the repositioning was in line with our undying resolve to serve our esteemed customers better as we have always done in the last two years and a half.”
“We believe in the future of entertainment in Nigeria and we are consistently investing on it. The change in name was necessitated by the fact that the group is now diversified into various aspects of media including television, publishing, production, cafes, etc. As a media group, we are now positioned to exploit several opportunities in media, tapping into synergies in pay television, content production, publishing and entertainment generally with a view to creating value for our rapidly increasing our subscriber base.”