In an interviewed with Michelle Garforth-Venter at DISCOP 2013, Mo Abudu, CEO, Ebony Life TV talks about the long road to launching her channel, the balance of local and international content on the channel and her views on production budgets.

Abudu discusses her early career, how she moved from the corporate business world to entertainment and what it taught her about doing things with others. She also talks about licensing the Desperate Housewives format from Walt Disney and the original show with MNet.

“I took the idea to MNet and they initially said ‘we don’t need a talk show because we got  got Oprah, we’ve got Tyra and these other amazing shows’. Then I said great, but these are not local (African) shows. We need to start creating content that speaks to Africans… it’s important to start localizing content.” Abudu told Garforth-Venter, in a SmartMonkeyTV video post.