MTN’s foray into video-on-demand services will begin first in Nigeria, with the group aiming to capitalise on local film and television content not found on major streaming platforms, CEO Ralph Mupita says.
Earlier in the week, Africa’s largest mobile operator said it had entered into a strategic partnership with Synamedia, a video software provider, to develop a new streaming platform “tailored for mobile and fixed broadband subscribers across Africa”.
The service will leverage Synamedia’s cloud-based technologies to deliver both linear television and video-on-demand content. In essence, the platform helps companies that want to offer their streaming services the ability to manage content and offer personalised recommendations to viewers.
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“We always try to provide services that sit on top connectivity. MTN TV will launch in Nigeria,” Mupita said during a media event on Tuesday.
Until now, MTN has partnered with third-party video-on- demand providers to promote their platforms, making its money through data bundles consumed on its network to access such services. The group has such partnerships with the likes of MultiChoice’s Showmax, Disney+ and Viu.
Customers typically access these services at cheaper rates.
The MTN boss said his company is not looking to compete with the likes of Netflix.
“We see it as complementary and focused on local content. Somebody could have MTN TV as well as Netflix. That’s fine. We’re not competing. We’re actually running in different lanes,” said Mupita.
Rather than spending money to produce its own films and television as done by MultiChoice, Netflix, Amazon and others, MTN will buy content from third-party production houses.
“The content we are [looking at] procuring is content that is not currently carried by the streaming platforms. Our role is to curate it. We’re not developing it ourselves,” he said.
Deep-pocketed international streaming giants such as Netflix, which see Africa as their next frontier for growth, have been pouring billions into original local productions.
MultiChoice has used its platform to grow a large local content library of more than 80,000 hours.
Netflix told Business Day in December that it had spent R4bn on SA content since 2021.
Given the size of Nigeria as the group’s largest market, with about 80-million customers, and the country’s growing entertainment industry, anchored by film and music, MTN sees the West African state as a logical starting point.
“We will launch it there [in Nigeria] first and then move across our other markets. We’ll have to go country by country. It’s not a pan-African single solution, because it needs to have meaning in [each] country for it to take off. Nigeria has a very vibrant film and music market but not everything is available on the big platforms,” said Mupita.
This is not MTN’s first foray into the world of streaming.
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In 2018, the company launched MusicTime, a time-based music streaming service, which allows customers to buy time on the service, data inclusive, as opposed to a monthly subscription.
At the time, then CEO Rob Shuter saw this model as a way to stand out from major streaming platforms including Apple Music, Spotify and Deezer, whose fees stood at about R60 a month, with an added cost of accessing the services on Wi-Fi or mobile networks.
MTN said the new Synamedia-backed platform would offer diverse monetisation models, including subscriptions, ad-supported content and free streaming channels with targeted advertising. Each of the group’s markets will benefit from a “curated content strategy, thoughtfully adapted to local cultures, languages and viewing habits — ensuring deep relevance and strong audience resonance across the continent”.
