High season for sector as local content demand surges

The objective of the meeting – aptly titled ‘the business of film’ – was to create more awareness of the creative arts industry as a viable investment area.

The Kenya Film Commission says that the surge in investment in film is mostly due to the government setting up policy aimed at boosting the domestic media and film industry.

While the costs of becoming a part of the content food-chain were prohibitively high five years ago, the entry of more players into the field and new innovative partnerships are contributing to drive the price of local productions down.

“Before, people would go the traditional route of getting a single sponsor for each show, but now that restricts options. It makes more sense to create such compelling content that advertisers naturally flock to be associated with it,” said Kimaita Magiri, managing director of KenTV, a local content developer.

Media sources indicate that one broadcaster is getting revenues of around Sh10 million from advertisers keen to associate themselves with a single one-hour block that corresponds with a certain show.

For producers of content, this means that the entry barriers have reduced significantly as broadcasters do not tie shows to the sponsorship they may get.

“Film professionals have also shifted the direction from competition on costs to competition in quality.

Instead of getting money from just making an animation, the producers have to consider the market response, which will force them to pay more attention to the film’s quality,” said Lizzie Chongoti, CEO of the Kenya Film Commission.

As the market grows, local producers will have more space to focus on creativity, distribution and marketing aspects of their films.

Globally, the television broadcast market is set to hit $326.2 billion by this year, according to industry research firm Datamonitor.

Datamonitor says going forward, the industry challenge will be to tackle continued threats of piracy, declining advertising effectiveness, the entrance of non-traditional competitors and audience fragmentation.

“Advertising has been a steadfast revenue generator for the broadcast sector,” said Mr Khouri.

“However, as consumption habits transform and consumers utilize multi-platform channels as well as on-demand and time-shifted viewing, traditional revenue generation models are losing their effectiveness to bring returns. Broadcasters therefore will need to look to a variety of diversified revenue streams to bolster income.”