fbpx

Is Netflix Preparing To Compete In Africa With New Video-Streaming Content?

Is Netflix Preparing To Compete In Africa With New Video-Streaming Content?

Netflix prides itself on its variety of entertainment offerings, but when it comes to African films and shows, the video-streaming service admits it has been lacking.

Now Netflix has announced that it is seeking a director of content acquisition for Africa, the Middle East and Turkey.

This person will be based in Amsterdam and will be responsible for finding local programming and acquiring the global rights for shows and movies from across Africa. Netflix, which is based in Los Gatos, California, has seen successful already in licensing African shows.

This new job opening requires “a deep knowledge of the production landscape—both the creators and the distributors — and the ability to identify appealing series and films early in the life cycle.”

Servicing all of Africa will be a major task, taking into account 54 countries with different cultures and languages.

“Typically, multinational corporates and other international bodies put Middle East and North Africa as one region with sub-Saharan Africa as another,” Quartz reported. “Of course, the successful candidate would work with a team, but they’d be responsible for a very broad region with disparate viewing cultures. That the new director’s office will be in Amsterdam speaks to multinational’s unwillingness to establish a physical presence in Africa, even as they seek to build a customer base here.”

Satisfying all the varying tastes and needs of viewers in 54 African countries will be a challenge.

Netflix to target Angophone Africa?

Many stakeholders feel that Netflix’s acquired content will probably lean toward Anglophone programming. This is because “South Africa and Nigeria have the most sophisticated and largest industries, respectively. This makes it easier to pick up quality content, but it likely underweights about the good portion of the continent’s viewers who speak French and Portuguese,” Quartz reported.

Netflix already has some strong competition in Africa. There’s Malaysian subscription streaming video service iflix, which announced the creation of iflix Africa for sub-Saharan Africa. South Africa’s answer to Netflix is Showmax, a global subscription-based video streaming service. And AfroLandTV offers a platform for African films.

Spotty Internet connections and the high cost of data will other major hurdles for Netflix in getting its African programming to its target audience.

“In Nigeria, for example, a 2-gigabyte data plan can cost as much as $20 per month. Regular viewing of Netflix will use several times that amount of data in a month. That’s a lot of money for data in a country where the average university graduate earns around $500 a month,” Quartz reported.

African filmmakers and producers, however, are most likely excited about Netflix’s new focus on Africa.

Currently, Netflix has an estimated 125 million total subscribers worldwide, including 56.71 million in the U.S. alone. It reaches 190 countries. Netflix has offices in the Netherlands, Brazil, India, Japan, and South Korea.

Africa’s Internet Infrastructure Challenge Could Slow Netflix Rollout