The business and consumption of television as we know it is going to change forever. From digital living rooms to newsrooms, stay tuned for a personalized, multi-screen experience. 

We live in a world of constant disruption. Technological advancements have turned everything on its head. Companies like Uber, Airbnb, YouTube and Facebook have shaken the incumbents in their respective industry, paving the way for new business models that value efficiency and instant gratification. Fintechs are the next group of relatively new startups to disrupt one of the world’s largest sectors – banking and finance. And while every industry in the world is impacted by these technological enhancements and changes in consumption, media has probably changed the most.
Before we get into the changes impacting the evolution of television news, it’s important to take stock of the market. In sub-Saharan Africa, the pay-TV landscape is dominated by DStv. Hybrid services that bundle over-the-top (OTT; content delivered over the internet) services with digital terrestrial and IP TV like Kwese and Wananchi Groups’ Zuku are smaller in terms of subscribers, but are making inroads across the continent.
The deadline for the switch-over to Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) has passed in most markets in Africa, but remains an opportunity for growth and channel development. Netflix and Amazon Prime have been globally available since 2016 and are growing subscriber numbers in emerging markets, competing directly with pay-TV providers, while Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat are investing in scripted short-form programming. With the abundance of choice, for both free and paid content, the share of screen-time is getting increasingly more fragmented.
<a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/technology/2018/09/18/multichoice-africas-biggest-tv-operator-to-be-listed-by-naspers-africas-largest-public-company/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: MultiChoice, Africa’s Biggest TV Operator, To Be Listed By Naspers, Africa’s Largest Public Company</a>
PwC, a professional services firm, publishes a report, Entertainment and Media Outlook: An African Perspective, each year. The report does a good job of measuring the pulse of media across the continent. PwC predicts that the total TV market in South Africa, which is the largest TV market on the continent, is going to exhibit reasonably strong growth. They predict that the pay-TV sector will add 1.5 million households by 2022, contrary to the decline in pay-TV viewing predicted by media pundits as a result of the availability of OTT alternatives like Netflix in South Africa. TV advertising remains an important part of the overall TV market, but accounts for just under a quarter of the sector’s total revenue.
In West Africa, Nigeria’s TV market grew year over year by 17.1%, despite a challenging economic climate. Again, pay-TV dominates revenues in the sector, commanding 75% of total revenues while advertising accounts for just 19%. Poor broadband penetration and availability has delayed the onset of the internet video segment, extending the life of linear TV in Nigeria.
How is content creation changing? 
Industry leaders like Netflix have brought in data analytics for better content creation and acquisition. The Economist published a cover story on Netflixonomics in June where it reported Netflix has identified some 2,000 “taste clusters” by watching its watchers. An analysis of how well a program will reach, draw and retain customers in specific clusters lets Netflix calculate what sort of acquisition costs can be justified for it. Historically, the calculus of whether a show or film is worth making was based on relatively subjective criteria, and, on the intuition of people experienced in content creation. Data will become increasingly important in determining what to produce. 
Advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning are going to play an important role in augmenting the abilities of content producers, particularly journalists. AI-driven computer vision tools, speech recognition and natural language processing, when combined with a real-time content feed can help a content producer with creating enhanced visualization and representations of data, fact-checking, and guest identification cataloguing.
AI is enhancing the newsroom in many other ways. From streamlining media workflows to automating mundane tasks, enabling journalists to focus on what they do best – reporting. AI is also being used to improve turnaround times by allowing content creators to crunching more data. Research can be performed much faster, information can be correlated quickly and efficiently. Facebook is using AI to detect word patterns that may indicate a fake news story.
One of the largest cost components within a television news station was the cost of connectivity. Historically, connectivity for a TV channel was largely based on expensive satellites. Reliability was also an issue; bad weather could impact the quality of the signal. Portable cellular backpack solutions like LiveU, which uses the internet through mobile cellular networks, bound with other networks, like wireless internet have rendered legacy satellite uplink systems redundant and obsolete. Robotic cameras used within news studios take up less space and don’t require dedicated personnel to operate them. Integrated hardware solutions that incorporate all the elements of live TV in a single box have reduced the cost to operate a TV channel.
What are the transmission protocols of the future going to look like? 
How people receive content is becoming just as important. IP-delivered content opens new doors in how advertisers can target consumers. As TV becomes more digitalized and smarter, the line between TV and OTT is blurring. Advertisers and ad agencies will eventually merge their TV ad digital planning and measurement. 
It’s no secret that video on demand and other internet video services lag pay-TV across Africa. This is largely due to the availability and affordability of broadband internet. While this remains a challenge in the short-to-medium term, providers of telecommunication services are entering the content distribution space.
How will consumption patterns change in the future? 
We’ve covered how data informs decisions around content production. Data is also used in the consumption side of the equation, particularly when it comes to delivering personalized content recommendations. Netflix does this particularly well with its content recommendation algorithms. This becomes important when dealing with massive amounts of content, like for example, user-generated content from social media sites. On any given day, over a billion hours of video are watched on YouTube. 70% of this content is recommended by YouTube’s algorithms. Going down the rabbit hole of YouTube is something most of us are familiar with; your well-intentioned first click to a video someone sent you leads to a three-hour binge from videos about political conspiracy theories to a clip on the antics of various house cats.
The recommendations are personalized, and they’re the first thing you see when you sign onto the site or YouTube app. They help you find the needle in the haystack of the millions of videos on YouTube that you actually want to watch.
The shift to second screen viewing has already taken place, with viewers often multi-tasking, watching Netflix and engaging with their friends on social media. There has been a lot of buzz around augmented reality and virtual reality. If you look past the gimmickry and hype, there hasn’t been a tectonic shift with either technology. 
Wherever the future of television takes us, you cannot understate the importance of quality content, whether user-generated or scripted, free, paid or ad-supported. Almost all content will move towards a multi-screen environment with a highly personalized stream of content, rendering channels obsolete. The television will be just one of the many screens available to audiences. News production will become more efficient to produce, insightful when consumed and ubiquitous in its availability.
– The writer is the Managing Director of CMA Investment Holdings.

pictures flow

The Not-Too-Distant Future Of Television

Eleven years of CNBC Africa…on a personal level, what has the journey been like for you? 
They have been 11 very good years. Looking back to when we first moved to South Africa to establish it, we had challenges from a regulatory point of view and a distribution point of view. But all that is now behind us. We are looking at business confidence picking up in South Africa and the rest of Africa. We are looking forward to the future.
What is the future of the media industry in Africa? 
There are challenges in emerging markets. I sincerely believe universities and educators look at the curriculums across Africa. The whole environment is changing. We have digital coming in a big way globally. Print media is dying and how you give birth again to what was print on digital is quite a challenge even for television stations. There are challenges for media moving forward. The owners, from the management perspective, also have to consider what they would do with digital.
With that in mind, what are your plans for CNBC Africa? 
Luckily, we are a niche channel. Niche channels, up to now, have been alright. Whether you have a food channel or a fashion channel, music channel or news channel, you will have to look at how you mix both the digital part and TV part moving forward. Having a business channel depends on how the economies are moving. I believe Africa is on the verge of explosion as far as investment is concerned. There are not many places in the world that have the resources Africa has. People are looking at these things.
How are you looking to growing the company in the near future? 
When I started off [in the Middle East], we did the whole of Arabia, which was 37 countries, I did Africa and I did Pakistan – these are the three CNBC franchises, and we learned from each of these franchises, and we have an excellent relationship with CNBC. Moving forward, we are looking at various ways to grow. You need to target your demographic. On the digital side, it has to be millennials. Forget about the over 50s, and mobile is the way to go if you want to target the millennials.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/30-under-30/2018/06/04/under-30-technology/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Read More: 30 Tech Entrepreneurs Under 30 </a>
What advice would you give young people trying to break into the media space? 
Go digital. Take advantage of the technology and keep your costs down when you start. You don’t have expensive cameras because you can use mobile. Also use citizen journalism, stick to quality and concentrate on demographics.
Should we be following global trends in the media space as a continent? 
People want things to drop from the sky. You have to market yourself well, make sure there are transparent rules and regulations for foreign investors who want to come in and make sure you have a level playing ground in the countries that make up the African Union…
How significant is the power of networking for young entrepreneurs? 
Networking works but remember to be yourself and be original. That’s how you succeed. Originality comes through. We know when a young person is trying to ‘network you’.
What lies ahead for CNBC Africa? 
We are looking forward to the next five years. We are positive both in Nigeria and South Africa. We might be going more digital and taking advantage of other niche channels we are thinking of partnering with outside of Africa.

Zafar-Siddiqi-559

How CNBC Africa Plans To Go Digital

On July 16, viewers around the world will eagerly tune into the premiere of the seventh season of Game of Thrones.
That phrase – “viewers around the world” – hasn’t applied to television premieres before. For most of its history, television has been a profoundly national medium. While shows like <a href="http://www.ultimatedallas.com/dallas/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Dallas</a>, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096542/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Baywatch</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096697/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Simpsons</a> all drew large global audiences, international television trade required delays: A television series could air in different countries, but it often happened months – even years – after it would air in its country of origin.
As I explore in <a href="http://www.amandalotz.com/we-now-disrupt-this-broadcast/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">my book</a> “We Now Disrupt This Broadcast: How Cable Transformed Television and the Internet Revolutionized It All,” many of those practices have changed in recent years. It’s now possible for a series to release new episodes for viewers around the world, and the result is a global watercooler – a shared media culture that transcends national boundaries.
While you might think that <a href="https://www.netflix.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Netflix</a> or <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/getstarted" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Amazon Video</a> would have an advantage, it’s an <a href="http://www.hbo.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">HBO</a> show – <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0944947/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Game of Thrones</a> – that’s at the forefront of this phenomenon.
<h2>Building a global fan base</h2>
Even in <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-has-tv-storytelling-become-so-complex-37442" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">a golden era of television production</a>, Game of Thrones stands out. HBO <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/hayleycuccinello/2016/04/22/game-of-thrones-season-6-costs-10-million-per-episode-has-biggest-battle-scene-ever/#62c056eb11bb" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">spends lavishly</a> on the series – beyond what most other networks can afford – and the result is a visually breathtaking product.
Its fantasy setting takes place in a world that isn’t geographically or culturally distinctive to the U.S., which also broadens audience appeal. Television shows that aren’t country-specific – miniseries such as <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118414/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Odyssey</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115195/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Gulliver’s Travels</a> – tend to be among the most successful in international trade. There was also a built-in global fan base from <a href="http://www.georgerrmartin.com/grrm_book/a-game-of-thrones-5-book-bundle/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the popular series of novels</a> that inspired the show.
Game of Thrones, however, didn’t start out as a global blockbuster.
HBO debuted the show in 2011 for its U.S. cable channel. Following standard practice, the network sold the series to channels around the world that would air the series with the typical delay. For example, Canal+ airs it in France, Sky Atlantic airs it in Italy and Foxtel airs it in Australia. There are also several HBO branded channels around the globe such as HBO Canada, HBO Central Europe, and HBO Asia. Some are owned fully or in part by HBO’s parent company; others just license the name.
By 2014 Game of Thrones had become <a href="http://www.vulture.com/2014/06/game-of-thrones-now-hbos-most-watched-show-ever.html#" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the network’s biggest hit</a>. But as the show’s popularity grew, so did its rates of piracy. While unauthorized access of video is difficult to measure with certainty, many called the series <a href="http://time.com/4618954/game-of-thrones-pirated-2016/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the most pirated show in the world</a>.
<h2>How HBO pulled it off</h2>
We’d expect changes wrought by the internet to have played a key role. They did, but not in the way you’d expect. HBO didn’t use the internet to distribute Game of Thrones to subscribers around the world <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-unique-strategy-netflix-deployed-to-reach-90-million-worldwide-subscribers-74885" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">like Netflix and Amazon Video have done with their series</a>. Instead, the internet was important to the series’ global growth because of the opportunities it gave fans to interact with one another.
The intricate, surprising storylines on Game of Thrones inspired instant dissection and analysis on social media feeds. This encouraged fans in TV markets outside of the U.S. to seek out unauthorized video sources: It was the only way they could avoid spoilers. While <a href="http://ew.com/article/2015/04/21/game-thrones-piracy-record/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">news stories</a> about the high rates of piracy highlighted the popularity of the series – a form of free promotion – HBO certainly would prefer viewers to watch through authorized channels. Eliminating the delay in access was one solution.
In 2015, just before the start of its fifth season, HBO <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/game-thrones-season-5-set-780377" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">announced that it had deals</a> in 170 markets around the world to air new episodes simultaneously with its U.S. broadcast. This was not unprecedented. Dr. Who did the same in 2013 with a <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/doctor-who/10470879/Doctor-Who-breaks-simulcast-world-record.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">94-country simulcast</a> in honor of its 50th anniversary – a one-time event.
Arguably no network other than HBO could have pulled it off.
Because HBO is both the producer and distributor of the series, it can adjust the timing of its international availability. Making shows (the job of studios) and presenting them to audiences (the job of channels) are two different businesses, and their interests don’t perfectly align. If a different studio produced Game of Thrones for HBO, the studio might be too concerned that the simulcast would diminish its ability to sell the series to other distributors. Moreover, HBO had significant international reach and relationships that provided it with a direct pipeline to viewers outside the U.S.
<h2>Not the new normal – for now</h2>
While HBO has shown that global TV blockbusters are now possible, they aren’t likely to become common practice. Internet-distributed services that are building a global subscriber base – such as Netflix and Amazon Video – have a clear advantage in this regard. They have customers around the world and can act as the producer and distributor of their series or negotiate for worldwide rights. It’s notable, however, that neither has succeeded in creating a true blockbuster hit. For example, Netflix’s “<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2189461/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Marco Polo</a>” had a huge budget and a premise that appealed to audiences around the world. <a href="http://deadline.com/2016/12/marco-polo-canceled-2-seasons-netflix-1201869350/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">But it never caught on</a>.
While <a href="http://us.macmillan.com/blockbusters/anitaelberse/9781429945325/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">blockbusters can be incredibly lucrative</a>, there’s no magic formula for making one. The odds of success are far greater when making series that speak specifically to the cultural experiences of people in individual countries or with particular tastes.
Once Netflix and Amazon Video have firmed up a strong subscriber base outside of the U.S. with local programming, look for them to also wade into the risky – but rewarding – business of global blockbusters. &#8211; Written by <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/amanda-lotz-154746" target="_blank" rel="author noopener noreferrer">Amanda Lotz</a>, Fellow at the Peabody Media Center and Professor of Media Studies, University of Michigan
This article was originally published in <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Conversation</a>
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How Game of Thrones became TV’s first global blockbuster

<h3>If you could be a super hero, who would it be and why?</h3>
I would be Batman because I feel he’s the most attainable type of superhero and there should be a Batman in all of us. He does not possess any super powers, but instead he makes the most of the resources he had access to, coupled with a considerable amount of skill to make a difference in his society; someone who will happily risk his life for other humans.
<h3>The best city in the world to do business is…?</h3>
Unfortunately, my view on that is still pretty limited, however when it comes to the industry I’m involved in, it’s both Los Angeles and New York.
<h3>Your personal style?</h3>
I try not to box my personal style because I’ve always felt that constricts it into something not diverse enough. I have a number of influences and try and draw from those, from the dapper gentleman to the streetwear enthusiast. But if anything, I think my OCD side ensures a common thread of neatness and structure with attention to detail for whatever I wear.
<h3>What are the key aspects to launching your own label and promoting yourself as a brand?</h3>
When it comes to both I think there are many overlapping principles; you need to know what it is you are offering that sets you apart, who you’re offering it to, what value that offering adds, what your standards are and then simply never swaying because consistency is paramount to any successful product, brand or company.
<h3>So will you be the next Top Billing presenter?</h3>
(Laughs) I’ve been getting asked this question often lately; it seems the rumor mill is as resilient as ever. I will not be the next Top Billing presenter, at least to my knowledge, but perhaps one day that time may come.
<h3>If you could square off with any TV presenter who would it be and why?</h3>
<blockquote>If I could square off with any TV presenter, it would be Ryan Seacrest, because he has become somewhat of an expert in what he does and even if I may not be a real fan of his, I have a great deal of respect for all that he has achieved through presenting and the ventures that soon followed. So I think squaring off with him would be an opportunity to both put myself to the test as well as just to sit back, observe and learn.</blockquote>
<h3>What should the African businesswoman wear to impress?</h3>
To be honest, the African businesswoman can wear whatever she wants, from a chic tailored power suit to a traditional African dress. It’s the broad sense of diversity that makes us unique and African, right? So if an African businesswoman can pull any of that off with confidence and a smile (the draw card), and as long as it fits and complements her, I am sold and very impressed.
&nbsp;

Maps-etch

7 Questions With Masego ‘Maps’ Maponyane

Zain Verjee started her career on the radio before going on to become one of CNN’s most respected television journalists. Today, Verjee is an entrepreneur in the digital space in Africa.
What is remarkable is that Verjee sustained a high-profile career in television despite suffering psoriasis, a skin ailment that manifests in the form of red spots and patches covered with silvery scales. For years, she endured this privately, drawing strength from family. The odds were stacked against her.
Born and raised in Nairobi to a Kenyan family of Indian ancestry, her early education was in Kenya before moving to Montreal, Canada, to study English Literature and Development Studies at McGill University. Verjee returned to Kenya and enrolled for a graduate degree in environmental studies. Meanwhile, she heard of a job opportunity in radio.
“A new radio station opened up called Capital Radio at the time. I started reading the traffic news. Then I filled in for a love line show at night where I started learning how to become a radio DJ. I gave romantic advice on the radio at age 21/22 and read poems and was soppy and played sad songs on air, which was great. When the embassy was bombed in 1998 [Al Qaeda bombings of United States’ embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam], it was close to the Capital FM radio station, so I got involved in reporting the story and so that really forced me to become more engaged in hard news. So I did some work for the BBC. Then I started working for Kenya Television network and then I applied to CNN,” says Verjee.
Given her limited experience, Verjee’s application was a long shot. However, she was not willing to back down.
“The manager at the time told me I didn’t have enough experience, I had never done breaking news and that I shouldn’t bother applying. But I continued to apply and I begged for a screen test and eventually managed to convince her after at least 10 or 15 email exchanges where I was bordering on becoming ‘stalkerish’. So she said ‘OK, fine! Come to Atlanta, I’m not going to pay you, I’m not going to hire you, you are going to have to pay your own way, but we will do a screen test and then go away’. So I did the screen test and then she said to me ‘I’m going to do something I’ve never done before, I’ll offer you a job on the spot, but as a writer, not as an anchor, and we’ll train you and if you are good, we’ll promote you. If not, then you can go back to Kenya after three years’. And it was amazing. I learned how to anchor, I learned how to write. Everyone at CNN helped me succeed and gave me many opportunities. And the journey evolved from there.”
Verjee’s persistence earned her a posting to the Unites States’ State Department as a foreign policy correspondent. This was during the difficult days of the Bush administration with Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State and the war in Iraq. She explains: “When I went to the State Department, I was very scared. I was very intimidated and nervous because I had no idea what to do. And I didn’t understand nor did I have sources and I didn’t have relationships that would give me information at the time. And I remember after making one phone call on a major story to the State Department spokesman at the time, I didn’t know who else to call so I was just pacing the corridors waiting for him to call me back because I didn’t know what else to do. I was really in a panic because the phones were ringing, there was pressure, there was information wanted, ‘match the story, break the story’; I was sweating bullets. But eventually I learned. The State Department press corps were fantastic. Condoleezza Rice was a great personality and powerhouse to cover. U.S. foreign policy was in an interesting moment at the time and CNN was really pushing me to be better than I thought I could be.”
All this while, Verjee had to manage her ailment whilst maintaining her poise in front of the cameras.
“Right before I applied to CNN in 1999, my skin condition was so bad I could barely walk properly. What happens is because it’s such a visually ugly disease, especially for a young woman, it psychologically has a terrible impact, and you get very afraid of exposing skin, you get afraid of close relationships, you are nervous; because now I was developing a profession in television, yet my face was the only thing I was projecting that was clear. So by the time I was at CNN, until I moved to London, I was in remission, so I was really more confident of myself. I was appreciating my own body, my own skin, my own freedom a lot more. And I didn’t have any struggles until I got to London when it inflamed again because I was stressed. It was a difficult adjustment for me at the beginning and it affected my immune system and my stability. So it became again very hard because on the one hand I was fighting my own body and trying to control it, and on the other hand, being glamorous and trying to present comfortably. And when my skin is bad, I become psychologically a bit disturbed and can’t focus. So I’m always having to cope with my skin as a way of personally dealing with the health issue, making sure that in my profession it doesn’t create the obstacle it once did.”
Of all the stories she anchored, Verjee singles out the brutal attack by Somali terrorist group, Al Shabaab, on the Westgate Shopping mall in Nairobi as the most challenging. The siege occurred in her backyard and most of the people and families affected were known to her. Verjee walked a fine line as she balanced her emotions covering such a personal story while upholding her professional responsibility.
Nairobi was also the scene of one of the scariest moments Verjee faced as a journalist. She was covering the protests that erupted after Kenya’s national elections in 2008 when an attempt to pre-empt a march by protesters resulted in Verjee being hit by a tear gas canister shot by the police.
“It was opposite Uhuru Park where the GSU paramilitary were. And they just started targeting journalists and they targeted me first because I was walking and talking. All of a sudden I heard a loud boom and a very sharp pain in my back, and my eyes started watering because it was teargas. It was in such close proximity that had that canister hit my face or my spine, we would have been having a very different conversation.”
In April 2014, Verjee made the decision to leave CNN. Her passion for Africa and desire to actively contribute to its growth led her to establish Akoma, a digital storytelling platform. With the new project, Verjee seeks to enable Africa’s digital generation to tell their stories.
“I believe it’s time young Africans who have access to smartphone technology and are increasingly connected to the digital world, get to say what they want. If they have an idea or an opinion, it should come authentically from us. It should come from something that is created by Africans that is just as good as the rest of the world’s innovations.”
A proud African, Verjee believes African women will shape the future of the continent. “I believe African women can set the benchmark for the world. The kind of passion, innovation, enthusiasm and opportunities that I have seen directly in the last six months engaging with many of these women leads me to believe that African women are shattering the glass ceiling and that some of the real innovation that will come will be from them.”
Verjee is surely leading the way.

CNN Digital Rebranding 2013

The News Anchor Who Begged For  A Screen Test

Every time Nicole Amarteifio turned on primetime television in Ghana, she struggled to find a character she could identify with. A character who was a strong, black, college-educated woman born in Ghana and raised in America, just like her.
Amarteifio soon found she was not alone in her thinking; other women she knew also shared her sentiments, tired of seeing African women playing supporting roles on TV or nothing at all.
And then, one day, watching re-runs of Sex and the City, the popular American TV series, the idea hit Amarteifio: why not create an African version of the show?
Thus was born An African City, a YouTube web series following the lives of five women who, after years abroad, return to Ghana.
“African women, for so long, have been told that they are invisible, it [was] important to have a show that screams out: ‘Not true! You are visible and I see you’,” says Amarteifio.
She drew on her own life for inspiration. At a young age, her family had relocated from Ghana to New York. Her father wanted the family to experience ‘the American dream’ as he once had as a student at Wesleyan University, Connecticut.
But life in The Big Apple was not easy. “I grew up in a neighborhood where I was often the only black child in my entire class, which meant often having a swarm of white faces that would look at me when subjects such as black crime in the inner city or name-a-disease on the African continent came up.”
She decided she was going to find out what it meant, for her, to be black.
When her maternal grandmother visited the family in New York, she would enlighten her with stories from her life in Ghana as Queen Chief in the town of Akuapem in the Eastern Region.
“She would tell me stories about her Caucasian husband who worked for the British colonial government&#8230; my grandparents’ interracial marriage was among one of the first documented interracial marriages in West Africa,” she says.
Amarteifio looked forward to summer holidays in Accra where she would immerse herself in the culture.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-29610" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-060-061-An-African-city-003-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-060-061-An-African-city-003-200x300.jpg 200w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-060-061-An-African-city-003-300x451.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-060-061-An-African-city-003.jpg 426w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" />
cars in africa?
“After a while, I was less interested in ‘the American dream’ of my parents [and] more interested in what ‘the African dream’ could mean for me and my peers.”
After a bachelor’s degree in African Studies from Brandeis University, in Waltham, Massachusetts, she relocated to Ghana where she worked in various companies, hoping to change the way African women were portrayed in the media. But a career in media didn’t satisfy her; she felt she could impact more people with TV.
In the first episode of My African City, Amarteifio depicts a situation many Africans can relate to. When Nana Yaa (played by actress MaameYaa Boafo) proudly gives her Ghanaian passport to the immigration officer, he responds saying: “You’re Ghanaian? You don’t look or sound like a Ghanaian.”
“There are so many of us who have left and have returned, but we are no less African. I will not be marginalized and I will not be told who I am&#8230;rather, let me tell you who I am,” says Amarteifio.
Since its debut in March 2014, An African City has resonated with many people around the world. But the show has had many challenges.
Initially Amarteifio struggled to convince investors and TV networks to buy into the concept. She invested $1,000 from her savings into the series, and cut costs by using YouTube to broadcast her show.
“There are certainly some people from the West who watch the show and say, ‘Wait? They have cars in Africa?’ My series is about showing the Africa they never show you.”
As the series, now shooting its third season, gains success, Amarteifio hopes people will start to see Africa in a positive light, highlighting success stories.
“There are flaws in the ‘Africa Rising’ rhetoric, but I would take that rhetoric over the ‘Dark Continent’ message any day,” she says.

FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-060-061-An-African-city-002

‘We Are No Less African’

Reality television often tries to portray the behind the scenes activities of well-established TV personalities, showing their good and bad days. Sometimes there’s more drama when the lights go off. It was a resignation from two shareholders that dimmed the lights on Damien Brown’s diversified media company, New Vision.
Before graduating from high school in 2000, Brown found his entrepreneurial feet selling watches and cologne to his classmates. With this experience, he started his first registered business, The Grounds Communications which was a vending machine business distributing prepaid airtime. A friend’s father gave Brown an opportunity to start securing sites for these vending machines.
“I ran that business for about two and a half years successfully and after that the [mobile] networks decided that they needed to invest in the new technology at the time, which is now called 3G,” says Brown.
This would become his first major setback on his entrepreneurial journey.
“The vendor’s cash got sliced quite a bit and it forced me and my business out of the market,”  he says.
So, in 2003, Brown started New Vision, a company that sold advertising space on the vending machines from his first business. Through the years, the business diversified into a media group housing a production business, an advertising agency and a gear rental business.
But seven years later, New Vision changed their focus completely. A change caused by his worst day in business.
In 2010, Brown was sitting in his office when the chairman walked in with surprising news.
“I think I was 27 at the time. He came in and handed in his resignation. His son had emigrated abroad and was also a shareholder in the business… [he] had also taken money out of the business,” says Brown.
“The business had slowed down quite a bit and he thought ‘this was my exit strategy time and now it’s time to move on’. The shareholders had milked the business and pulled out when it slowed down. At that point I was very young and naïve. I didn’t understand what it all meant, resigning as a director and the other as a non-executive director and me being left in the books as the only director.”
A tough time for a young entrepreneur without any formal business training nor a university qualification. He knew no other way to deal with the drama but to shed tears.
“I was very emotional. I lost everything. I think when I was pinned up against the wall, I had nowhere else to turn. So it was either flight or fight. You really only got those two options and I don’t think I have it in me to run so I had to deal with it,” says Brown.
This was one of the reasons that Brown changed New Vision’s focus. There were too many facets to the business and it was too much for one person to focus on. Brown was worried he would become a “jack of all trades” and never really achieve anything. The second reason was passion.
“It’s one thing just making money but it’s another thing also being happy. Money doesn’t buy you happiness. And I’ve always had a passion for television. I love how you put everything together; the entire method is such an intricate process which I’m really attracted to,” says Brown.
The 30-year-old had to do things differently with the next season in his life.
“This time we watched every cent. We vet everyone we get into business with. We have a committee that makes decisions on everything. Basically, we cross our Ts and dot our Is seven times over before making decisions,” he says.
Today, New Vision is predominantly a production company specializing in producing content they own and content produced on behalf of their clients. They’ve produced reality television shows like Being Mandela, a show that chronicled the lives of the late Nelson Mandela’ws granddaughters, which aired on NBC, and The Blueprint Travel Show for Fox TV in the United States.
“We’zve just returned from a four-month stint in Los Angeles where we produced the next season, I suppose it’s called The Real Plastic Surgeons of Beverly Hills, but ideally it’s what Dr 90210 used to be on E! with Dr Robert Rey,” says Brown.
In Africa, New Vision currently has four projects in production, including Kelly-Ann Cooks in Africa, which is being shot in Mozambique.
The reality television bubble is big at the moment, Brown says, so there’s a lot of content viewers can choose from. He hopes that the bubble doesn’t burst like his dreams of a younger day.

No Flight  Just Fight

It’s hard to believe Danai Gurira wields a sword for a living.
On the small screen, she’s Michonne, a swift zombie slayer in America’s current hit-television series The Walking Dead.
Off-screen however, seeing her perched comfortably in a corner of her hotel room, stirring honey into her tea on a wet Johannesburg morning, is a slightly odd experience.
This is because there’s no trace of that steely aggressiveness her character has in The Walking Dead. Her current choice of outfit, a gleaming fitted white dress and perfectly crimson lipstick, is also a far cry from Michonne’s dirty khakis and dreadlocks.
With a strong track record of stellar roles both on celluloid and television in America, Gurira is channeling her influence into investing in the arts in Zimbabwe. This is in the hope that her home country and the rest of the continent will start to do the same, with the African woman as the main beneficiary.
“The idea of telling African women stories was [me] responding to a call I felt needed to be done, that I had to do in the course of my life,” says Gurira.
“I had to do it in a way that was excellent and facilitated other people’s talents, gave stories to women who often don’t get to tell stories, and don’t get to be the lead in a story.”
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-6299" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Danai-Bio_0688-210x300.jpg" alt="" width="210" height="300" />
Despite being born in Iowa in the United States, Gurira calls Zimbabwe home, where she spent much of her younger life with her family until the age of 19. She then returned to America and enrolled at the Macalester College in Minnesota. Since graduating and now, at 36, Gurira has received critical acclaim for her acting, but what stands out is her playwriting. Her play In the Continuum alone garnered the Helen Hayes, Obie and Outer Critics Circle awards. Her 2012 play, The Convert, also scored her a nomination from the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Writing.
“I always wanted to tell really powerful stories as an actor, but I will say there was something very powerful and interesting to me about being the creator of a story. When I get acting work, I go in, do it and it’s something I have been trained in. When I get a job I embrace it, but the thing that burdens me is getting the stories out,” she says.
It’s no surprise then that all of Gurira’s plays have the woman as the central character. This is from two women dealing with HIV in In the Continuum to abduction and sexual exploitation of women during wartime in Eclipsed.  These are harrowing and poignant women’s stories, intermingled with uncomfortable truths rarely talked about. Gurira nonetheless exposes them on stage.
“I have to get uncomfortable when I tell a story, and then I have to allow other people to get uncomfortable too. As a child growing up on the [African] continent, I will say I was raised in a home where I was allowed to be rather outspoken. I’m thankful I grew up in that environment,” says Gurira.
“I think that that sort of discomfort of letting girls be front and center in the stories I tell is a discomfort I want people to have. There are some discomforts I pursue, because I want that story to be told. That allows for people to start to really grapple with things, and then perchance progress towards healing. So I definitely pursue discomfort in the stories I tell.”
Investment in the arts is therefore crucial for the continent, where women dominate the informal sector.  According to a United Nations report, 84% of women nonagricultural workers were informally employed between 1999 and 2000 in sub-Saharan Africa, as opposed to 63% of nonagricultural male workers.
While women are at a clear disadvantage, the silver lining, according to the report, was that the lack of permanent employment pushed women towards self-employment.
Almasi, Gurira’s dramatic arts training organization in Zimbabwe, could be another platform that encourages self-investment.
It is however a fairly young organization, and will need more than just Gurira’s founding name to build its theater foundations.
“I felt there was stagnancy in [Zimbabwe’s] progress in this particular art form. Not music, not literature, just the dramatic arts.”
Arts funding in Zimbabwe, according to Gurira, has only been trickling in despite the country’s prolific literary works, from the likes of Shimmer Chinodya, Tsitsi Dangarembga and Cont Mhlanga.
With a new play on the cards, and her existing plays in the process of being dramatized in Malawi and Zambia, Gurira expects an interesting diasporic language to begin unfolding in the name of theater.
“I want Zimbabwe to have great literary work. Just like we have NoViolet Bulawayo and Tsitsi Dangarembga, we need more literary artists in the dramatic realm. I think the world is almost ready to hear our stories, and it’s a fertile moment for the African and the African woman to start taking the helm in terms of being a storyteller,” she says.

A Sword as mighty as the pen

A deep horn blast was used in a slice of history at Africa’s biggest stock exchange. It was from the lungs of Rakesh Wahi, Founder and Vice Chairman of Africa Business News (ABN), signaling the opening of the bourse, as CNBC Africa crossed a new frontier in business broadcasting on the continent.
CNBC Africa – the sister of FORBES AFRICA in the ABN stable – became the first African broadcaster to beam shows from the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE). It came on the eve of the company’s seventh anniversary.
“It’s an exciting time; I haven’t stopped smiling since yesterday. It is to the credit of the people around you who have all done a fantastic job,” says Wahi.
CNBC Africa is emulating the example of CNBC in the United States (US), which has broadcast from the New York Stock Exchange since 1995. This move is all part of a bigger plan.
“Our vision is to be in all 48 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. We have to be in all the major exchanges and report from the smaller ones. We need to be able to integrate all these exchanges through information flows. We need to be able to go out and educate people about what markets are,” says Wahi.
The new studio is state of the art. It includes an eight cube video wall, six interview positions and robotic cameras – which will be fully controlled out of the gallery and will minimize additional camera crew. The main anchor desk, resembling a star, is a copy of the one used both in Europe and the US.
It will host Open Exchange, Power Lunch and Closing Bell, with regular crossings to Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Mauritius, Uganda, Zambia, Namibia, Rwanda, Mozambique, Botswana, Gabon and Ghana.
Jean Landsberg, the head of technical and operations for the ABN Group, traveled to New York and Singapore to check out the latest technology.
“When I traveled to the SGX in Singapore and New York, I got an idea how they put their infrastructure in place… whereas Singapore still link in to their [stock exchange], from the main studio, we will be actually running everything and all the operations from the JSE studios. So it’s a little more advanced than what Singapore is doing,” says Landsberg.
LED technology will be used to reduce the power consumption by the studio lights and the video wall. Landsberg says, as time goes by, small technological frills will be added.
The new technology is in the interest of keeping business people better informed about what’s happening inside Africa’s biggest bourse.

The First Lady of the road

On The Pulse Of The Markets

In the next three years, China will spend close to $1 billion buying a share of Africa’s digital satellite television market.
It is big business that is not welcomed by everyone.
As dozens of African countries migrate from analogue to digital television, China has already purchased its way into a strong position that is likely to get stronger.
Since 2000, China has invested in Africa’s broadcast networks. This firm hand has seen China shift from technical support to supplying what is on the screen.
“China has been in Africa for a lot longer than most people think. If you remember most liberation movements, Africa got assistance from China as well as Russia. Back then in the 1950s, 60s, 70s and 80s, it was more of cooperation in the struggle for liberation,” says Wellington Radu, head of programs at Media Monitoring Africa, a non-profit media watchdog.
Chinese media group StarTimes is at the heart of Africa’s digital terrestrial migration, with roughly 2.5 million subscribers on the continent.
“We can only speculate as to why China is increasingly investing in Africa’s media space. It is about how African governments choose to handle China’s investments so that they work to their advantage,” Radu says.
So far, a mere handful of African countries have launched digital terrestrial television (DTT), and it is expected that 100 million homes in the continent will switch by 2015.
DTT migration on a national level is a relatively new venture for the continent, and in many cases a number of countries do not have the policy or the strategy to switch to a fully-digital landscape.
African countries are looking to companies like StarTimes, already present in eight of the continent’s countries, to bankroll the migration.
One of the issues is that this could put most of Africa’s pay television market in the hands of a foreign player.
“To me it represents a serious question around how [this] will this impact democratic processes and spaces. On the one hand it empowers you. At the same time it scares me if I think about the fact that if I allow the Chinese to do this, how much power does my government have over what they know I’m accessing on the net, what I’m writing, who I’m talking to?” says Sanusha Naidu from the Open Society Foundation of South Africa.
Meanwhile, StarTimes has spent $127 million in Nigeria to make sure that 16 of the country’s states will receive its digital signals.
“I think what’s interesting as well is the Chinese don’t want to go to the media partner, they want to go to the state. They understand where the power to release licenses lies, who has the power to make the decision,” says Naidu.
Earlier this year, the Pan African Network group, a part of StarTimes, won a controversial signal distribution license tender in Kenya.
The license provides the group with ownership of the platform on which broadcasters will have to grant transmission of their content, giving StarTimes a large portion of Kenya’s television market.
The company has however been accused of attempting to heavily monopolize the continent’s DTT space even before its birth, which has drawn criticism of China.
“In an infrastructure sense, it’s providing that platform, but I think it’s the next step, the content. What’s interesting is [African countries] are earning a name for themselves but not actually creating their own content,” says Yu-Shan Wu, a researcher at the South African Institute of International Affairs.
Naidu nevertheless believes that China’s role in Africa’s DTT migration could provide the possibility of a number of countries turning into Big Brother states.
“It does empower African countries, which can be positive and negative at the same time. It can actually be a paradox within itself. What happens with enabling African countries to launch, or helping them with the digital [migration], is that you run the risk of actually using the way in which China interprets its own technology, its use of its own digital space and capabilities to spy on its own people,” Wu explains.
The fear is that Africa is going to lose control of what people watch, and countries will have to be cautious of what China could do once in the continent’s digital space.

Megabucks China Coming To  A TV Screen Near You

It was a beginning dogged by poverty, but inspired by dreams. Actress Terry Pheto’s family was too poor to own a television set and she grew up paying 10 cents a day to sit on the floor to watch TV with her neighbors. Now, she sits in Hollywood and makes a fortune from appearing onscreen in the soap opera, The Bold and the Beautiful.
So was it by sheer luck that Pheto was chosen in a country full of accomplished and perhaps more experienced actresses? Vukile Madlala, the publicity manager at the South African Broadcasting Corporation’s SABC1, explains how it all started: “Since we are the channel that carries The Bold and the Beautiful as one of our longest-running soapies, the producers of the soap came down with a handful of their actors for a South African tour. It was during that trip that they discussed with us the possibility of developing an African character. They asked us to nominate a few actresses, and Terry Pheto was one of the actresses we put forward.”
It would seem that this move by the American producers was a calculated one. Madlala points out that The Bold and the Beautiful is still among the top five rated shows on SABC1. Simply put, viewers are still hooked—even after many years of watching the storyline unfold.
A look at general viewership trends reveals that while the craze over reality television is crushing the soap opera in the US, Africans are still tuning in—and in large numbers, compensating for the loss of viewers and income on home turf.
All of these factors have conspired to take a woman from Boipatong in the Vaal Triangle, near Johannesburg, to Hollywood. It has been a long journey.
Pheto has certainly come a long way from being the child whose family didn’t own a television. She had to drop out of college during the second year of an IT diploma, because there was no money for tuition, and joined a community theatre group.
It was a long apprenticeship that bore fruit in 2008. She found fame after being cast in the 2006 Best Foreign Film, the South African Oscar-winning movie, Tsotsi. Then, Pheto was selected as the face of international cosmetic giant L’Oréal Paris, following in the footsteps of Jane Fonda, Halle Berry, Beyoncé Knowles, Freida Pinto and Cheryl Cole.
Now, Pheto is playing the role of Dr Malaika Maponya in The Bold and the Beautiful.
“It was amazing playing a South African on one of the world’s most famous American soaps,” she says. “I didn’t have to learn a new accent, I didn’t have to venture too much into the unknown—all I had to do was make sure I knew my lines by the time I arrived on set because the level of professionalism there is unlike anything I have ever seen before.
“The production is like an incredibly well-oiled machine that runs with amazing precision. There’s simply no room for error or tardiness. You get only one take, and there is an expectation that you must get it right the first time,” she explains.
With the type of opportunities that she’s had at her disposal so far, Pheto would most certainly be forgiven for packing her bags and relocating to the United States permanently in pursuit of her own Charlize Theron fantasy tale. She already travels back and forth for classes and workshops. She has great connections and relationships with the South African community making it big in Hollywood—the likes of Gavin Hood, creator and director of Tsotsi, the very same guy who took a great gamble by putting Pheto and a few other community theatre actors in front of the camera for the first time.
But as I engage her on her current and future plans, it is pretty clear that the African continent features front and centre in her plans.
Growing her resumé as an actress is also top of mind for Pheto. She has recently been one of the main stars in a local movie called How to Steal R2 million, where she played the character of Olive—a feisty township girl who will do whatever it takes, even crime, to survive.
“I am currently reading scripts and attending castings. In our local film industry, you are lucky to do two movies a year. So I am constantly in search of my next big movie project,” says the lady whose portfolio includes roles in movies such as Catch a Fire and Goodbye Bafana, in which she played Zindzi Mandela.
Pheto also has ambitions of making it behind the camera. “A while ago, I got awarded a scholarship to study filmmaking and directing at the New York Film academy. And as soon as I can identify a gap in my schedule, I will be enrolling in that course,” she says.
She would love to collaborate with the stars and directors in Nollywood, the highly successful Nigerian movie circuit. “I admire how the Nigerians delight in their own culture and how they love telling their own stories. With the kind of viewership numbers they attract, and our sense of quality in production as South Africans, we can do really big things together,” she says with a smile.

TERRY PHETO

WHEN MEDIA MOGUL  Oprah Winfrey bid farewell to 25 years of The Oprah Winfrey Show in May, she left viewers with a cliff-hanger. “I won’t say good-bye,” Winfrey said on her final show. “Until we meet again.”
<div id="attachment_197" style="width: 823px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-197" class="size-full wp-image-197" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/FO101011_191.jpg" alt="" width="813" height="621" />In 1976, at 22, Oprah became coanchor of Baltimore&#8217;s WJZTV</div>
But the promise of that glorified gathering place on her glittering new cable network, OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network, has fallen short of expectations. OWN’s 24-hour-a-day programming launched on Jan. 1 in 80 million homes as a partnership between Winfrey’s Harpo production company and cable programming powerhouse Discovery Communications. The goal was to remake a forgotten, high-numbered cable channel into Oprah-branded gold. Ratings quickly tanked. Chief Executive Christina Norman was shown the door in May. Winfrey became the chair, CEO and chief creative officer in July. Now the pressure is on Oprah to save TV’s feel-good network.
Winfrey admitted to fans on Facebook that OWN hadn’t found its flow because she and her staff had been too focused on ending the syndicated Oprah TV show. (Winfrey declined an interview with FORBES.) Critics argue that the issues run deeper. Since OWN’s launch in January its average prime-time audience dropped 37% to 250,000 viewers in July, according to Nielsen. An average of 109,000 viewers tuned in on an all-day basis that month—just one-third of the viewership expected by advertisers.
<div id="attachment_199" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-199" class="size-full wp-image-199" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/FO101011_193.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="683" />Founded Harpo in 1986</div>
Robert Thompson, the founding director of the Bleier Center for Television &amp; Popular Culture at Syracuse University, believes OWN launched too early, without enough programming. The shows it does have are weak, he says. Adding to the troubles: OWN is difficult to find on the channel guide. “Some people thought anything Oprah introduced would be a hit. She could introduce the chicken pox, and people would want to get it,” says Thompson. “We now know Oprah’s name isn’t enough.”
Discovery Communications Chief Executive David Zaslav, who approached Winfrey with the idea for an Oprah-inspired network in 2007 and subsequently okayed pumping nearly $200 million into it, says he isn’t worried by the lower-than-expected ratings. “It’s going to take time,” Zaslav insists. “There is no cable channel that launches from nowhere to immediate success.”
Zaslav has pushed for more involvement from Oprah. He persuaded Winfrey to double her on-air time in 2009, before the launch. With Winfrey in charge, “Oprah’s now at the center of OWN,” Zaslav beams. “This is the moment we’ve been waiting for.”
Winfrey may be one of the media industry’s best brand managers, but can she rise to the role of a programming executive? On Aug. 1, after spending her first full week focused on the channel, she told fans that while she wasn’t “frazzled” by OWN’s performance, managing it turned out to be one of her biggest challenges. “It’s ten times harder than doing my daily show,” she said in a Facebook note. “Doing that show felt like breathing every day. Now I’m in so many meetings I sometimes have to step out and catch a breath.”
<div id="attachment_200" style="width: 685px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-200" class="size-full wp-image-200" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/FO101011_189.jpg" alt="" width="675" height="805" />Started monthly O magazine in 2000. Has over 2 million subscribers</div>
Part of Winfrey’s new strategy is integrating OWN’s staff in L.A. with Harpo’s staff in Chicago. “One team, one heart,” goes the mantra. Harpo presidents Sheri Salata and Erik Logan were tapped as OWN presidents in July and will lead both teams. Instead of chasing ratings, Salata and Logan plan to focus their attention on brand-consistent programming and hope better ratings will follow. “We feel very bullish that we will deliver on the commitments that we have in the marketplace,” says Logan.
Zaslav, too, maintains that advertisers— OWN launched with about ten blue-chip ad clients that had signed multiyear deals—have been incredibly supportive. Of them, Target, Kellogg’s and Procter &amp; Gamble declined to comment. A General Motors representative says GM remains committed to OWN.
Some close OWN watchers warn that advertisers’ support has just about reached its limit. Derek Baine, a senior analyst at media research firm SNL Kagan, says OWN’s ratings have sometimes been lower than the ratings for the Discovery Health channel, which preceded OWN on the same channel number. “If we get to the end of the year and ratings are still terrible, then it’s a big problem. Advertisers will pull back on their commitments.”
That means Winfrey has to work fast to ensure OWN’s new programming— scheduled to launch Oct. 10— catches on. After all, even with her $2.7 billion net worth Oprah can’t subsidize a cable network indefinitely. OWN executives are placing most of their hopes on a daily talk show, The Rosie Show, hosted by comedienne Rosie O’Donnell, and a rehash of the Oprah show, called Oprah’s Lifeclass. The latter will use select clips from the 4,561 Oprah episodes, along with new footage of Winfrey sharing personal revelations and life lessons. “At my core I’m a teacher, masquerading as a talk show host. And now I’ll have a nightly class on OWN,” Winfrey said on Facebook.
<div id="attachment_201" style="width: 442px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-201" class="size-full wp-image-201" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/FO101011_190.jpg" alt="" width="432" height="288" />Republican presidential candidate Texas Gov. George W. Bush chats with talk show host Oprah Winfrey Tuesday Sept. 19, 2000 after appearing on the program in Chicago. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)</div>
In January a second show hosted by Winfrey, Oprah’s Next Chapter, will follow her around the world as she interviews high-profile subjects. “All it takes is a couple of big hits,” says Syracuse University’s Thompson. “The really important question is, can Oprah still do a hit show?”
It’s a bet that Winfrey, with Zaslav’s backing, is willing to make. With the cable property valued as high as $1 billion, it’s no small risk. “We’re making a lot of progress,” says Zaslav. “Watch out for us over the next two to three years. We’re going to make a big splash, and we’re going to have a big impact.”
&nbsp;

Oprah Winfrey’s OWN Battle

In an increasingly on-demand world, how do you get people to tune in and stay tuned? Take a cue from Ian Sander and Kim Moses. Six years ago the husband-and-wife duo produced a television show called Ghost Whisperer, about a 25-year-old girl (played by Jennifer Love Hewitt) who can talk to ghosts. CBS picked it up and scheduled it to run on Fridays at 8 p.m., a ratings dead zone. Survival meant generating some serious buzz—and not waiting for the network’s help.
The pair organized a conference where paranormal-fanatic bloggers could meet the stars of the show before it aired. They also created a crystal ball game for ghost-fan forums online. Expenses ran short of $100,000, cheap by TV standards. Result: Ghost Whisperer averaged 10 million viewers during its first season—the highest-rated Friday night show that year. Over the next few years (it ran for five) Sander and Moses made a Web series from a ghost’s point of view, called The Other Side. When Comic-Con, a film and TV convention, came around they produced a Ghost Whisperer graphic novel. In some cases sponsors like General Motors covered most of the costs.
Sander and Moses got so good at building buzz they decided to make a business out of it. Today the couple runs two outfits headquartered in the old Animation Building on the Disney lot in Burbank, Calif.: Sander Moses, their production arm, and Slam, a marketing agency that helps TV and movie producers use the Web to snare viewers. According to SNL Kagan, a media research firm, even if a show makes it through its first season, it has only a 30% chance of being renewed the next year. “We have to create an interactive playground,” says Moses, 50.
Sander, 56, and Moses started flirting with online marketing in 1996 while working on the show Profiler. Their lead character, FBI agent Samantha Waters, was tracking down a serial killer who called himself “Jack of All Trades.” One episode took place in Jack’s lair, where the killer typed on his computer. The camera peeked over his shoulder to reveal the URL he was looking at—JackOTrades.com. Viewers who went to that website could chat with the creep and tour his loft. The site was such a hit that NBC executives, worried about the message they were sending, asked to have it taken down.
These days Sander and Moses never make a show without a marketing plan. Last year they pitched a reality show, Psychic in Suburbia (about psychic Maureen Hancock and her family), to the Style Network. The attack included a mobile application that allows users to shake their phones like a magic eight ball and get Hancock’s answer to any question. The show premiered as a onehour documentary in July; Style will decide whether to pick it up as a series in October.
In another project, meant to highlight the show Ugly Betty as it went into syndication earlier this year, Slam created an app that lets viewers “Be Bettyer” by decorating a photo of themselves with Betty traits like thick eyebrows and braces. For Regis and Kelly they created an app allowing fans to run a virtual race in high heels, winning coupons along the way.
“We love what they’re doing,” says Eric Berger, head of Sony Pictures’ Crackle, which hired the couple to create a Web series called Monster Heist, about monsters planning to steal jewels. “They think about the 360-degree experience.”
<div id="attachment_65" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-65" class="wp-image-65 size-large" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/FO091211_021-1024x683.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="316" />Husban and wife Ian Sander and Kim Moses</div>

Tag: Television

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How CNBC Africa Plans To Go Digital

How Game of Thrones became TV’s first global blockbuster

7 Questions With Masego ‘Maps’ Maponyane

The News Anchor Who Begged For A Screen Test

‘We Are No Less African’

No Flight Just Fight

A Sword as mighty as the pen

On The Pulse Of The Markets

Megabucks China Coming To A TV Screen Near You

TERRY PHETO

Oprah Winfrey’s OWN Battle

Buzz Builders