Nollywood leverages box office, tech to grow revenues

While the Nigerian film industry, otherwise known as Nollywood has attracted a lot of attention due to its phenomenal growth, industry stakeholders, especially filmmakers are still making efforts at optimizing revenue from a potential audience of 40 million people in Nigeria and about 10 million outside the country.
Despite the economic recession which Nigeria just came out of, the stakeholders hope to break industry record of N853.9 billion ($5.1 billion), and about 1.4 percent, which Nollywood contributed to the Nigerian economy in 2014 and making it the third most valuable film industry in the world, behind the United States of America and India.
The industry is targeting a colossal US$8.1 billion annually revenue by 2019.
To achieve the target, filmmakers are now collaborating more with cinema houses (Box office) and film distribution companies for movie premieres and effective film distribution channels that will fight-off piracy, optimize revenue and safeguard investments in the industry.
Box office business can be measured in terms of the number of tickets sold or the amount of money raised by ticket sales (revenue). The projection and analysis of these earnings is very important for the creative industries globally, something Nollywood is just beginning to catch up with.
Speaking at the development, Kennis Ikwuagwu, a Nollywood content creator/CEO, July Films, noted that directors, especially financiers of the three highest grossing films in Nigeria today; The Wedding Party, A Trip to Jamaica and 10 Days in Sun City, which grossed N 453,050,000, N178, 500,000, and N177, 000,000 respectively, achieved the box office grossing breakthrough with premieres at cinemas across the country and the world over.
According to him, since 2014, an average of five new films premiere on at least 20 cinemas across the country in a month and this has given rise to growing investments in the cinema business, which now attracts over N15 billion investments in big screens across the country
“With good return on investment for the likes of Silverbird Cinemas, The Filmhouse Cinemas, Genesis Deluxe Cinema, among others who have invested over N10 billion in the big screen business in the last 10 years, more investments are coming in cinemas to boost earnings and further contribute in helping the entertainment industry to achieve the US$8 billion annual revenue target in 2019,” Ikwuagwu said.
However, more film distribution companies are emerging with working business models that are now impacting the movie business and wooing more investments especially from the financial sectors, which neglected the industry in the past for lack of records and assurance of return on investment.
Leading the pack is FilmOne Distributions, which controls a lion share of the movie distribution business followed by Silverbird Film Distribution, Blue Pictures and a few others.
Moses Babatope,CEO, FilmOne Distributions, believes Nigeria needs more cinema screens around the country to encourage cinema culture and appreciation of Nigerian movie content. For him, effective film distribution network and movie premieres are the key to fighting piracy. Toeing Babatope’s line Ikwuagwu noted that movie premiere and film distribution have improved since 2013 with more cinemas and better business model that has reduced losses from piracy by over N2 billion annually.
As well, filmmakers are leveraging technology to curb revenue bleeding. Today, many licensed digital movie marketing platforms and digital content startups are springing up every day and impact in their little way to the growth of the industry. Foremost among them is iROKO Partners, which licenses and streams Nollywood content to global subscribers, who pay $1.50 a month.
According to Jason Njoku, founder, Iroko Partners, “The focus is to take this popular movie industry, digitize it, and put the right framework around it to capture the proper value. The revenue is already there, it’s just scattered. If stakeholders can invest in Nollywood and make back profits, it will lead to larger budgets and better quality content.”
From the home front, Envivo Communications Limited (Envivo), recently launched a new OTT streaming video service, nVIVO TV, powered by the Cisco® Infinite Video Platform, to offer its subscribers access to more ‘Nollywood’ and international video content on more devices throughout Africa.
“The vision of nVIVO TV is to drive the African and African diaspora market toward a new online streaming experience that provides significant domestic content,” said Olu Obadina, chairman/chief, Innovation Officer at Envivo Communications Limited.
With new video streaming service, Envivo hopes to open another revenue source for Nollywood content creators.

OBINNA EMELIKE