Basically iROKOtv is going after Africa magic on DSTv, and StarTimes is their abettor.
My question is who is paying who here? Did iROKOtv pay Startimes? The other way round? Or is it a mutually convenient partnership? Because this is a coup for both parties.
For iROKO, potentially millions (Startimes has 4.6 million subs in 14 countries) of people who would never of heard of iROKO in the first place will suddenly be exposed to them now via StarTimes. This is clearly a case of taking the hustle offline, but doesn’t mean iROKO is giving up on internet. Not by by a long shot. They will merely onboard those people later. Unless Startimes itself innovates, it will lose its own subscribers to whoever becomes the Netflix of Africa (the jury is still out on who that is).
After DStv, iROKO’s nollywood catalogue is the largest, so it is obviously a great deal for StarTimes. First of all, the new Nollywood content provides an incentive for new subs that might be considering DStv because of Africa Magic. On the other hand, it will dissuade their current users from “upgrading” to DStv for the time being.
I think that is a good analysis. I would suspect StarTimes would be paying iRokoTV (I have no proof) . They are leveraging iRoko’s licenses which I imagine iRoko pays a nice amount for, and iRoko is probably giving them that at a discounted rate while they advertising iRoko on their platform. It will be a win win deal if you ask me. This reminds me of the Netflix and HBO thing going on in America. Netflix is trying to be HBO with premium exclusive programming like House of Cards and Orange is the New Black, while HBO is tryna get online like Netflix with their catalogue of exclusive shows and movies. In these kind of battles what is great is that the consumers are bound to be the winners.
StarTimes is in 14 countries. According to Naspers’ website, Multichoice is in 49 countries.
*We’re not sure, just how many subs Multichoice has, this number was via Wikipedia. There’s a ton of conflicting numbers all over their own websites, and the Wikipedia number looked like the safest.
Turns out you were spot on about StarTimes paying iROKO, I confirmed it. And re similarity to Netflix versus HBO, the title of this topic was from a quote from a Netflix exec that actually had Netflix and HBO in it where iROKOtv and DStv are.
First you have to understand this is Nigeria. The models that work in US in this particular industry won’t necessarily work here. The market has not evolved enough for StarTimes to pay IROKOtv.
What I think is going on is that IROKOtv is going to pay StarTimes some amount of money for the channel/operational support.
IROKOtv will monetise their content by displaying ads in between the videos.
