adminAbel Zhakata Senior Reporter
NIGERIA’s movie industry is making significant contributions to that country’s Gross Domestic Product and is one of the factors that led the populous nation being rated as the biggest economy in Africa.
The industry, known as Nollywood, produces more films a year than any other country except India.
In 2006, when the last comprehensive data was collected by Unesco, Bollywood released 1,091 major feature films, Nollywood 872, and their namesake, America’s Hollywood, trailed with 485.
Including smaller, lower budget films, Nigeria’s rises to more than 2,500 movies per year.
According to the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics, sound recording and music production are collectively now worth billions of pounds, and constitute 1.4 percent of the country’s £307bn GDP.
With more than 1 million people, Nollywood is Nigeria’s second largest employer.
Although its revenues are not at par with Bollywood’s and Hollywood’s, Nollywood still generates an impressive $590 million annually.
Zimbabwe is set to follow suit with the ongoing digitalization of television services which is being spearheaded by the Ministry of Information, Media and Broadcasting Services.
At face value in the short term, digitalization is earmarked to create more than 50 000 jobs downstream as local producers grind to make content to fill the increased broadcast hours brought about by the migration from analogue television.
These figures are expected to rise exponentially as the industry grows thereby having positive impact on other sectors of the economy that render their services and goods to the film producers.
Information, Media and Broadcasting Services Minister, Dr Christopher Mushohwe, told participants to a consultative meeting with independent film producers in Mutare last week that the digitalization revolution has created employment opportunities for local artistes.
He said the countrywide consultative meetings were meant to inform producers of the amount of work they need to do in order to meet the increased content requirement which must be filled by local material.
“The digitalization revolution underway has triggered these meetings with all stakeholders in the creative industries and this is arising from the realization that there is a real risk of embarrassment and even failure on the part of the sector to deliver sufficient content to fill the overwhelming programming hours that become available following the transition from analogue to digital television.
“We are struggling at the moment to fill the broadcast hours available to the one television channel we have with local content. What more when the public broadcaster has six channels to content with and even worse an additional six channel for commercial broadcasters,” he said.
Dr Mushohwe said the ministry has purchased equipment for content production which includes state-of-the art high definition cameras and editing equipment to kick start the production of broadcast material.
He said digitalization was a game-changer whose positive impact will create jobs across numerous sectors of the economy.
“We are alive to the fact that we have creative skills in this country which beckon to be harnessed and channelled in the right direction.
My message to you, your sector and to the nation at large is to look at the possibilities for employment creation and industry growth arising from… the broadcast hours that need to be filled.
These broadcast hours translate into jobs. That is the positive way of looking at our situation right now. No one single producer can do it, not even two or three content producers can do it. “This involves many people working day and night to produce the relevant content…
The challenge I am posing here is directed at one and all in the creative industries too numerous to mention. There is the film industry, broadcasting industry, publishing industry, interactive media, industrial and visual design industry, advertising industry, software design and development, architecture and related professional services and there is also the distribution industries.
All these will form a formidable and growing part of the country’s economic activity.
This is a sector with the potential to grow into a multi-billion dollar industry and just as it has done in other countries it can also happen here,” he said.
Minister of State for Manicaland Provincial Affairs Cde Mandi Chimene urged locals to step up and grab employment opportunities brought about by the new digital dispensation.
She said the promotion of local culture was paramount and, as such, producers from the province must come up with content ideas that promote their identity.
Permanent secretary Cde George Charamba urged artistes in the province to come together and form an association that will enable them to access the newly acquired digital broadcast equipment in a professional fashion.
“There is no option here. You have to come up with an association so that your organize yourselves and use this equipment. We need accountability in the way this equipment is being used and that is only possible if you do it as a group,” he said.
Cde Charamba explained to the participants the benefits the country will derive from digital migration.
Apart from availing a modern television delivery platform with service capacity to licence new television players, he said digitalization will provide high quality television services and improved reception among a plethora of other benefits like variety of choice, interactive services, business opportunities and employment creation.
Content producers welcomed digital migration saying the ball was now in their courts to rise to the occasion and produce television products.
They said the ministry had shown a zeal and commitment to see the successful rolling out of the project by funding the production costs of the material they will produce using equipment acquired by Government.
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