African Content Is Ready for Its “Global Moment,” MultiChoice Executive Tells MIP Africa (Exclusive)

However, the leading focus of the pay-TV giant remains to cater to the base African viewers, with Showmax streaming nine of the 10 most-watched programs, apart from ‘House of the Dragon’. 
 
“It is not out of place to say that there is an incoming revolution in Africa’s film industry. ” That was the optimistic outlook on the current state of African film and TV programming made on Monday at MIP Africa by Nomsa Philiso the CEO of general entertainment at MultiChoice Group which owns Africa-focused streamer Showmax. “We have seen the same thing with Afrobeats, Amapiano and music across the African continent. ” 
 
She also said that more African TV series and movies are being aired globally than ever before: referencing some highlights of her speech that was given to The Hollywood Reporter, the company noted that there was what it termed as a string of breakthroughs for African content last year. Among them we have; university drama Wyfie, crime thriller series Reyka, the story of an African legendary king Shaka iLembe. 
 
Plus, a record number of African films screened at the Cannes Film Festival 2023, and Rise: The documentary titled Siya Kolisi Story actually received the audience award at the last year’s Tribeca Film festival. 
 
MultiChoice has also been distributing African stories through its sales arm MultiChoice Studios as well as through affiliations with distributors such as Abacus, AMC, Fremantle, StudioCanal, and The Exchange who is representing MultiChoice’s MIP Africa opening night film titled The Fix. 
 
Since Reyka opened the Monte-Carlo Television Festival and received International Emmy nominations for best drama series and best actress in 2022, the first season was sold to over 150 countries, including BritBox in North America, Channel 4 in the UK and HBO in Latin America,” Philiso said. 
 
Philiso also highlighted other successes; The Real Housewives of Durban that has streamed on NBC Universal’s reality streamer Hayu, Peacock and Bravo, The Real Housewives of Nairobi, the vigilante killer thriller, Devil’s Peak which Philiso sold to Tubi for North America and crime thriller miniseries White Lies starring Natalie Dormer which is set to air in Sundance Now, Stan in Australia and Channel 4 in the 
 
MultiChoice has stated that it produces contents in Africa and is in 50 out of 54 African countries and tells stories in 45 languages. 
 
Showmax, MultiChoice’s African streamer, resurfaced in February with a new approach – local originals, Hollywood pumped-up content and ‘the beautiful game’ in English soccer, making Showmax affordable and plotting to ‘disrupt’ streaming on the continent. This came after MultiChoice signed a deal and partnership with NBCUniversal, the entertainment unit of Comcast, and Sky, the European pay-TV business in early 2023 to “deliver some of the world’s best content and technology to streaming customers” in the sub-Saharan Africa region “when Africa itself is on the cusp of growth in broadband connectivity, and accessibility. ” The Showmax group was owned by 70 percent by MultiChoice and 30 
 
Speaking on Monday, Philiso pointed to the fact that MultiChoice, for which Vivendi’s Canal+ business has made a public tender offer, currently has in excess of 84,000 hours of local content to present at the global arena. “For several decades, we have been consuming content from all the international media stakeholders but the trends are now changing and the relationships are becoming mutual due to the growing demand of the African content,” she said. These strengths yet make us unique and best positioned for any partner or content distributor in Africa who shares the same passion as we do in diversifying the content landscape of the world. ” 
 
However, Philiso pointed out that though the international market is also relevant, MultiChoice main focus is to create content for its target market in Africa. ”Like the others, Africans want to listen to their own languages and recognize themselves in what they are watching,” she said to MIP Africa. Currently, for instance on Showmax, nine out of 10 most-watched shows since the platform’s relaunch in February have been local productions, it has only been broken by a huge show like House of the Dragon .