How Music, Entertainment and Tech Converge to Drive the African Entertainment Industry

Africa’s major players in entertainment and media will contribute revenue of about US$12.4 billion to the industry between 2017 and 2022 at a rate of 11.9% CAGR. This is according to a PwC report, “An African perspective on Entertainment and Media: 2018 – 2022 Outlook,” published in 2018.

The countries mentioned in the report include Kenya, South Africa, Ghana, Nigeria and Tanzania. The report attributes telecommunication companies and increasing internet access to the many opportunities Africa presents in its entertainment and media industry.

Moreover, the continent anticipates an increase in potential consumers of the E&M industry due to increasing population in the continent and disposable income that increases gradually.

Therefore, the industry for entertainment and media provides lucrative investment opportunities. Econet Wireless, an international telecoms provider, recently announced an impending review of its services and business strategy to reflect changes in the satellite and digital sector.

The global telecoms company does this through a subsidiary business known as Econet Media. The brand owns Kwese through the free-to-air service “Kwese Free Sports”, a video streaming service known as “Kwese Play”, and an on-demand video platform dubbed “Kwese iflix.” 

Henceforth, the brand adopted a TMT business model, with high expectations of including more brands to its existing service.

Music is fast generating a lot of profit in the entertainment industry, post years of stagnated growth. Technology was once said to kill the music industry. But, today it has changed how African music is listened to, recorded and shared with peers on social media.

On the other hand, the west has seen the use of platforms and technology for media streaming. This explains the closure of music stores in high streets, including a drop in record sales. 

But, how’s does the vibrant music sector in Africa look like? Technology has revolutionized and affected Africa’s music and entertainment industry in the following ways:

Drives Innovations and Inventions

Music consumption and access has drastically changed over the years. Artists such as Nigeria’s Fela Kuti, Malia’s Ali Farka Toure, and Benin’s Angelique Kidjo have been on the radar for several years.

Recording technology innovation saw records change from vinyl to cassettes to CDs to MP3 and lastly streaming services. The changes saw new artists spring up across the African continent to gain exposure and success internationally. 

African music streaming services sprung up due to the invention of digital streaming. Streaming services in the continent include Boomplay Music based in Nigeria. The service provides music download and streaming services to over 31 million users. The service has about 17 million active users each month.

Global streaming services such as Spotify haven’t overlooked the rise in popularity of African music hits. Therefore, the service features African playlists, including ‘African Heat’ with great performance when it comes to featuring new artists and playing recently-released songs. The playlist was created by Spotify’s in-house editors.

Generates Extra Income/Revenue 

Legal sites for downloading music are on the rise in Africa, enabling local record labels and artists to generate extra income from their music. Akon, a Senegalese-American musician, bought shares in 2017 worth 50% of Musik Bi, the first local, legal platform for music streaming and downloads in Africa.

Akon made the move to support African artists and help them receive fair pay. The platform partnered with mobile operators across Africa so that users can use their mobile phone credit to download music legally. 

Nigerian artists, for instance, are gaining big time from the MTN Music Plus Service that allows millions of consumers to access local songs through Telcos.

Songa is another Kenyan-based streaming service in partnership with Musik Bi. Founded by Safaricom Ltd, the app allows the telcom company’s millions of customers to access songs by local and global artists from their Android gadgets. Similarly, the app helps local artists to earn extra income, increasing their earnings.

Safaricom also runs Skiza Tunes, a service that enables mobile phone users with the telco to subscribe for a ringback tone service. Whenever a user chooses a song to use on their mobile phones as a ringback tone, the artist behind the song gets paid.

Qisimah is another innovative radio platform for monitoring content that’s fast gaining traction in West Africa. Established in Ghana, the platform allows stakeholders in the music industry to access data in real-time on the performance of their music in radios. Data is key to digital content, and so in this case, the digital music arena.

With the platform, artists also have access to a legal framework. The use of Creative Commons licensing enables them to track the use of their songs in the digital world, making it transparent.

Piracy

Piracy is a major issue in the music and entertainment industry in Africa. Although technology has driven the development of streaming services, which in turn, have led to increased access to music and more revenue generation, it also fosters piracy.

The piracy issue has become so widespread that in 2017, the New York Times featured the pirate music industry in Nigeria. Whereas some artists gain more popularity through piracy because they seek notoriety, others find it a headache eating into their earnings due to the expenses and overheads they have to pay for.

By Mercy Adhiambo Oginga

Africa Global News Publication