Zuku, the East African three-in-one service provider, today announced that it has completed its first major content sale. The deal sees Nigeria’s MyTV purchase over 70 hours of programming from three Kenyan production houses through Zuku.
The deal includes five drama series and is the first large scale purchase of content represented by Zuku. Titles include Makutano Junction (Mediae), Saints and Higher Learning (both Spielworks Media). For the majority of the series the deal means a first outing beyond Kenya.
Especially significant is the fact that the deal could represent a shift in traditional content purchasing practices in Africa. Historically, West Africa has supplied East Africa with the large amounts of content, in the form of Nollywood movies, as well as series from Nigeria and Ghana – with hardly any traffic in the opposite direction. The sale of programming from Kenya to Nigeria could indicate a turning point in this regard.
The deal is also an indicative of Zuku’s approach to cultivating quality grass roots content. Since its launch, Zuku has dedicated significant time and resources to ensuring that it works with the best regional talent to both create and aggregate content that is directly relevant to local markets, and has the ability to travel.
Hannelie Bekker, Managing Director of Wananchi Programming said: “From our perspective, it is great to be able to announce a deal like this. One of the core aims of Zuku is to help enable high quality regional content. The sale of these five series to My TV is testament to the ability of good Kenyan content to appeal across borders. East Africa is a hotbed for creative talent and we intend to continue to find the best producers out there and work with them to realize value.’
Joram Migwi, who heads up the distribution project for Zuku, said: “We are particularly proud of the fact that we are involved in one of the first major sales of programming from East to West. This is something that we hope to see more of throughout 2012 and this could really enrich the African content economy.’
Carine Mouawad, Head of Programming for My TV says: “My TV is thrilled to introduce ZUKU content to the My TV MORE programs grid, in an ongoing effort to satisfy the growing demand from My TV subscribers for African content. My TV is confident that the ZUKU series will prove hugely successful with Nigerians.’
