Entertainment - Going for Goal;Africa

WITH only 14% of families owning a television, sub-Saharan Africans are in little danger of turning into couch potatoes. But the region’s economy is doing better than it has in decades, and many countries have a small emerging middle-class eager to spend their new wealth. That, at least, is the calculation of GTV, a satellite-television company created just over a year ago. So far it has signed up more than 100,000 customers in 20 countries—which, it reckons, translates into 1.25m regular viewers. This week it launched its first francophone service, in Congo and Cameroon, to be followed shortly by Côte d’Ivoire. GTV expects to be operating in 36 African countries by the end of the year.
This is shaking up the quasi-monopolies that Canal+, a French operator, and DStv, a subsidiary of Naspers, a South African media giant, have enjoyed for years. With few people able to afford a television, let alone a satellite subscription, pay TV remains limited to less than 1% of the African market. In Lingwala, a poor neighbourhood in Congo’s capital, Kinshasa, only ordinary TV aerials can be seen sticking out of the houses lining the unpaved streets.
This is where GTV sees its opportunity. Traditional, free-to-air television in Africa usually combines poor reception with tedious programmes. By offering cheaper packages than its satellite-based rivals and tailoring content to appeal to local markets, GTV hopes to sign up millions of customers over the next few years. A subsidiary of Gateway Communications, a pan-African telecoms firm, GTV is piggybacking on its parent company’s satellite network and local experience.
In Africa, as in much of the world, sport is what people are most willing to pay for. When big soccer games are on, bustling cities like Kinshasa come to an eerie standstill as fans huddle around TV sets. European and particularly English football, with its big stars, is hugely popular. “Such emotion: it sells,” says Jean-François Mubiayi, a Congolese football commentator.
So when GTV snatched from DStv the rights to broadcast 80% of the English Premier League’s football games live across much of sub-Saharan Africa, it was a coup. GTV is also investing in local football leagues in Uganda, Tanzania and Ghana, and broadcasts local games live, often for the first time. This is helping to spruce up stadiums, revive moribund clubs and bring fans and sponsors back to the games.
Besides sport, GTV also offers popular soaps, series and films from Hollywood, Nollywood (Nigeria’s version of tinseltown) and other parts of Africa. It has added international news, religion and children’s programmes to the mix. According to a recent report on African broadcast markets from Balancing Act, a research outfit, GTV has captured five out of seven new satellite subscribers in countries where it competes with DStv. In Uganda GTV claims that it has already grown bigger than its South African rival.
Unlike its competitors, which until recently were happy to focus on the small but profitable group of affluent Africans and expatriates, GTV is betting on scale from the start, striving to make pay TV more affordable and accessible. Julian McIntyre, GTV’s founder and chief executive, points out that over 80% of his firm’s subscribers are first-time satellite clients. Collins Omondi, a policeman from Nairobi, is one of them. Before GTV launched in Kenya, he used to watch terrestrial television or go to bars to watch football, since he was unable to afford satellite. He subscribed to GTV last year to watch English football, and suspends his monthly subscription when the season ends.
The DStv giant is not sleeping, though. It had already started offering cheaper subscriptions before GTV appeared on the scene. It launched Africa Magic, a channel dedicated to African soaps and movies, mainly from Nigeria, five years ago. It also started supporting local football leagues in Nigeria, and is now doing the same in Kenya, Angola and Zambia. And it broadcasts Italian, Portuguese and Spanish football, too. Earlier this year it launched a basic package for a mere $30 a year.
Despite losing most of the English Premier League live games, DStv is doing well: outside its South African base, it signed up 140,000 new subscribers last year and had 680,000 subscribers in over 40 countries by March. It also has over 1.7m customers in South Africa, and is established in other big markets such as Nigeria, where GTV cannot yet afford to be, and Angola. Eben Greyling, DStv Africa’s boss, reckons that by 2015 it will have as many subscribers in the rest of Africa as in South Africa.
Greater competition is good, but there are problems. Customers are unwilling to pay for television unless they have reasonably reliable electricity, which cannot be taken for granted. Piracy is also a problem for pay-TV operators: anyone with a decoder can rip off premium content and retransmit it, and copyright is often hard to enforce in Africa. Kinshasa has over 50 free-to-air channels, for example, which sometimes shamelessly lift content.
GTV is off to a good start, having spent $130m on its roll-out so far. But it is not yet profitable, since it is focusing on building up critical mass. And competition will drive up the price of content. DStv has been going for over 15 years and has deep pockets—which will no doubt come in handy when the English football rights come up for grabs again next year.