Here’s an intersting story. There’s going to be a new cable channel called The Africa Channel. Here’s the write-up about it in Yahoo News:
“Our network will serve an important cultural need while providing diverse, entertaining programing that demystifies Africa to the American television audience,” said Africa Channel CEO James Makawa said. “We also want to highlight that there is a lot of good stuff going on in Africa.”
Take a look at the CNN video piece on it at this link.
A write-up about the Africa Channel in the New York Times.
I’m very interested to see where this goes, and what contracts the can ink with the large cable networks to ensure wide-spread distribution. I hope that they have solid enough backing for a good marketing campaign as well.
[Lastly, I’d like to nominate myself to come and do some consulting for them on their website and to figure out an interactive strategy that will bring interest, viewers, and ultimately advertising dollars.]
July 20, 2005 at 6:47 am
It would be awesome if they syndicated some of those low budget television shows from various African stations. I’m sure South Africans would get the lion’s share but I remember all those low budget Kenyan soaps in Swahili…
or the musical countdown show with “Jimmy Gathu”
July 20, 2005 at 12:16 pm
Yeah, they’ll be serving them up to a US audience though. I imagine that they’re going to want the slickest programs that they can get their hands on, not the low-budget soaps that we had in Nairobi.
There’s a wide variety of programs available across the continent, but which ones will actually catch the US viewers interest? Two of the clients I deal with are national cable channels, since content is determined by viewers in this industry, the shows that management picks to air are extremely important. If viewers don’t like it they won’t watch it, and then the cable channel doens’t have any more advertisers…
May 25, 2006 at 12:48 am
hey when are are we going to have africa channel in seattle WA, there are so many africans in this state and everyone want to have this channel so bad , please help us , we try to contact our cable company but still we don’t have it please please help us to have this
July 3, 2007 at 6:11 am
The thought of Africa as the Dark Continent is beautifully mystifying and should remain as so.
July 3, 2007 at 6:13 am
The thought of Africa as the Dark Continent is beautifully mystifying and should remain as so. Their should not be much Western or European influence because it will then very common and uninteresting.