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More local content, broadcasters told: although television is spreading all over the continent, most of the non-news content is still imported from outside. African film producers are still handicapped by a number of factors but, as became clear at the first Africa Broadcast and Convergence Conference held in Nairobi. there is a huge demand for local content. Andrea Bohnstedt reports from Nairobi.

Article Excerpt
No matter what topic was being addressed, one message came across persistently at the First Africa Broadcast and Convergence Conference, held in Nairobi from 23 to 25 September 2008: More local content, and more local content!

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Technological change, i.e. the full transition in broadcasting from analogue to digital by 2015 and the use of a growing number of ways that broadcasts can be received - for example on mobile phones and PCs - will establish a larger platform that has far more capacity for content. As a consequence, the demand for content is going to increase exponentially - and this includes local content.

According to the 'African Broadcast and Film Markets' report published by Balancing Act Africa (BAA) - a publishing and consultancy firm specialising in African telecoms, internet and broadcasting developments - 17 or more out of 40 countries have licensed private free-to-air (FTA) stations, and many have additional pay TV stations.

National broadcasters will be joined by a multitude of commercial players and in a liberalised broadcast sector, "Your Excellency TV, with endless footage of a country's ruler's every movement will simply no longer be able to survive," says Russell Southwood, BAA's CEO.

Commenting on the ongoing wave of liberalisation in African broadcasting that opens up the sector to private participation, he expects to see 'the kind of growth that...

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