Curious to know any Nigerian content distribution platform development companies. Plus, how much would it cost to build a platform like Netflix, EbonyLive TV, Linda Ikeji TV & iRoko Tv apps?
Interested in opinions, please.
Hi @iimogiie, I don’t know any content distribution platform development companies but any good web developer or development firm should be able to pull this off. Concerning the cost of building an on demand video platform no one can say for sure. The basic functionalities most on demand video services have is user account system, payment system (subscriptions), some sort of drm system to make sure their video content cannot be stolen (this becomes important because most video players on the web you can just take a peek at the web source of the page and get the link to the video file they are playing), You would also need a cdn service that can serve different renditions of the video (when user is on a slower connection you may serve them a lower quality version of the video to still make the video play without buffering). There is still a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes for websites like Netflix. But like I said you cannot get an exact cost, you would have to ask a development agency for a quote with the scope of your project.
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Thanks a lot, @Joey for the insight. I understand @SwipeMax built Linda Ikeji TV. Any ideas on the iRokoTV development team?
@iimogiie I have no idea about the development team but If you would like to build something similar you could start small and lean. The Linda Ikeji tv frontend is made with react js, I don’t know about the backend but you can put a basic team together or maybe hire a fullstack developer. I think I would be interested in working on this as it seems like a real challenege especially the scaling the product part 
The website or mobile app is just 20% of the business of VOD. The most critical factor is your content portfolio, which can make of break your model.
To compete in mainstream content (offer everything) you either have to raise billions of dollars to acquire content and produce your own original titles or you go niche (eg arthouse films or documentary films), which limits your user base.
As per the technology, there is NO hard and fast rule to it. Iroko has pivoted in their technical partners and even the structure of their app several times.
For a very new entrant, you can consider www.muvi.tv which can easily get you started at less than $300 monthly and their pricing is quite reasonable and scalable.
Remember, the technology is just a minute part of the VOD business model. Content remains your life blood as a business and you have to keep producing your own originals and licensing/acquiring from existing content producers (which costs shitloads of money).
Good luck!