In the early 2022, StarTimes keeps collaborating with local content owners and producers across Africa, with gaining new projects in Nigeria and Kenya.
In Nigeria, as part of the commitment to grow the local film industry, StarTimes is partnering with the Actors Guild of Nigeria (AGN) on content production, with a view to tapping into the vast deposit of original African stories yet untold.
Reaffirming StarTimes commitment to deeper investment in Nollywood, StarTimes CEO, Alex Jian, said the collaboration is very crucial with the growing demand for quality local content by Nollywood aficionados.
“When StarTimes entered the market about twelve years, our mandate was to provide digital-TV to every home. The reception was huge for us. However, at a time, we had more foreign content. Over the years, the standard of Nollywood has improved and so also, is the market.
“This brought about the need to satisfy this growing appetite for Nollywood. Thus, our new brand vision is to balance our content offering. We know AGN stands for the larger Nollywood market. StarTimes is glad to cooperate with you to bring significant impact to Nollywood as well as grow and ensure that filmmakers have value for their productions.”
Commending the management of StarTimes for its contributions to the broadcast industry, the President of AGN, Ejezie Emeka Rollas, said the partnership will open a new window to a different form of entertainment that Nollywood Actors have been doing over the years.
“The partnership will effectively help us to further attract more viewers with our proposed entertainment content as we have full insights into the industry. Actors Guild of Nigeria is all about entertainment as members are major influencers with millions of fans and followers around the world. Our goal is to activate the potentials of entertainment as soft power strategy for paradigm change especially in Africa for positive attitudinal change,” he said.
In Kenya, regional Marketing Director Mr Aldrine Nsubuga, speaking when the company unveiled NIA – a new premium local drama and one of the first highlights of this year’s investment, noted that the local drama NIA is set to captivate subscribers, with the company having invested heavily in research, cast, and production quality to ensure the programme stands out in the market once it premieres.
“Our premium local drama, NIA, which is our first local production investment this year, will set the tone for our commitment to providing our subscribers with high-quality local entertainment.” Mr Nsubuga stated.
Mr Myke Mwai, StarTimes content director, said that the pay-television broadcaster is planning to cooperate with more content creators this year as they want to utilise their experience to explore new local content genres that would appeal to subscribers.
“We intend to reach out to a larger number of local content creators, which will give us an advantage in generating distinct genres that subscribers will readily relate to as they speak to their daily lives, while also ensuring that the content is appropriate for the entire family,” Mwai explained.
“This is our first assignment with StarTimes, and we are ecstatic that our efforts have been recognised by a pay television platform, demonstrating that local content producers have matured.” Mr Daudi Anguka, CEO of AR Film Productions, stated.
“We are optimistic that NIA will be a top-rated drama given the efforts that have been put into the final product, and we look forward to additional contacts with the broadcaster.”
Rembo TV is available in three East African countries: Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, providing an enviable platform to market Kenyan productions across the region and is available on both terrestrial and satellite platforms and is available across all StarTimes bouquet options.