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The French television company Cbad + has acquired the ROK film studio from IROKOtv on demand television for an undisclosed amount.
Founded by Jason Njoku In 2010 and with $ 45 million in venture capital, IROKOtv has the largest online catalog of Nollywood film content in the world.
Nollywood is a popular film genre in Nigeria that has become Africa's de facto film industry and one of the largest in the world in terms of production volume.
Lagos-based ROK film studios have been incubated to create original content for IROKOtv, available online around the world.
The actress and producer Mary Njoku – the wife of Jason Njoku, CEO of IROKOtv – founded the ROK studios and will remain CEO in the acquisition of Cbad +.
Owned by the media conglomerate Vivendi, Cbad + seeks to give Mary more means of production, without disrupting the creative chemistry of the Republic of Korea.
"We are acquiring Mary's talent," Fabrice Faux, content director at Cbad +, told TechCrunch.
"We will provide administrative support, finances and equipment, but otherwise we intend to give Mary maximum autonomy and creative freedom," he said.
Ms. Njoku's creative work has so far led the Republic of Korea to produce more than 540 films and 25 original television series, according to the company's data.
Through the RC, Njoku has extended Nollywood's formula for producing low-budget films, mostly shot in Nigeria, that reach the African public wherever they are. One of the most recent popular productions of the Republic of Korea is Ojukwu, an era series set in a nineteenth-century Nigerian village in which Njoku conducts and plays.
"Nollywood, it's Africa … We tell African history. You can bring a Nigerian story, a Ghanaian story, a South African story … we are talking about the same drama. So, Africans can connect to the average Nollywood story all over the world, "Njoku told TechCrunch.
With the acquisition of the Republic of Korea, Cbad + seeks to publicize the ethics of Nollywood production to other countries and regions of Africa.
"It's not that easy to produce an interesting movie for $ 20,000. Nigerians, especially Mary and Iroko, know how to do that, "said Faux de Cbad +.
"We want it to bring that to Francophone Africa. Because we need more African content and the industry has to develop in French-speaking Africa. "
False will not disclose the purchase price but will confirm that the transaction has a cash component. "It's essential for Jason … to develop aspects of IROKO's VOD," he said.
As part of this agreement, ROK will continue to create unique content for IROKOtv, its four existing channels – three on DSTV and ROK Sky in the UK – as well as on Cbad +'s African and global channels.
The opportunity to reach a larger network of African consumers on the continent and internationally is another game of Cbad + acquisition. Nollywood's online content has proven that he is able to find demand across Africa, including from diaspora populations abroad. The top three IROKOtv countries are Nigeria, the United States and the United Kingdom, according to a spokesman for the company.
"We will now be able to do things in English-speaking and French-speaking African markets … and have access to an advertising market where we believe there is huge potential for growth," said Faux.
The acquisition in the Republic of Korea is not the first collaboration of the Cbad + group with IROKOtv. The media company joined a $ 19 million investment in Series E in 2016, which also saw Cbad + and IROKO launch a French video-on-demand channel. It was shortly after Netflix had announced its launch in Africa, but with little African content originally. Netflix has since started ordering film content in Nigeria.
VOD startups, such as IROKOtv, have been working on bringing African films online, where they can be better distributed and monetized. The road is less arduous, given the continent's growing penetration of the Internet and mobile telephony, coupled with improved bandwidth and declining data costs. There were some allocations and losses. In 2017, Afrostream, the French-language VOD start-up supported by Y-Combinator, had raised more than $ 100 million in venture capital and set up subscription services in 24 African countries and 5 European countries. .
According to Njoku and Faux, Cbad + and ROK are willing to produce content for other VOD outlets and other production sites. "We could [for Netflix]or we could create a production corner on another VOD service, "said Faux.
On the possibility of pursuing an African film with a cross call to the non-African public – especially in the wake Black Panther's success – Mary Njoku, CEO of the DRC, does not exclude it.
"I have been tempted in the past and I am now, but I want to focus on creating the channels we now have among the best Nollywood channels," she said.
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