November 11, (THEWILL) – The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has called on investors from France and across the globe to invest in the nation’s new oil.
The minister who made the call at the Nigeria international Partnership Forum in France, described the nation’s entertainment sector and television market as “Nigeria’s new oil with 24 million TV households and the largest in Africa’’.
Mohammed said Nigeria is the African music and entertainment capital and has the continent’s largest TV market with high growth potential.
He said with the ongoing Digital Switch Over (DSO), there is potential for investments in the manufacturing of Set-Top-Boxes, content provision and requisite technology.
“Moving from analogue to digital television broadcasting means we will have more channels and more contents,
“The Nigeria Tv market has about 100 million subscribers in the rural areas and also about 98 million in the urban settlement. while the annual Tv subscription revenue is about US$80 million.
“The advert spent as at 2020 is about 490 million USD and as digital transformation is ongoing we are looking at 1.47 billion advert revenue”, he said
Mohammed said besides the TV market, Nigeria has Africa’s largest internet and social media economy with 107 million active internet users, 33 million active social media users and an annual ad spend of about US$233 million.
He said Nigeria is projected to be the fastest-growing media and entertainment market in five years with a 12.1 compound annual growth rate.
According to him, the market growth is currently driven by subscription revenue, which accounted for 72.26 per cent, while TV advertising accounted for 21.3 per cent.
“This is what exactly we want to change with DSO because, only about two or three companies in Nigeria today are involved in a subscription while we have hundreds of TV stations, producers, writers and directors.
“We want to revise it to ensure that about 70 per cent of our revenue will come from content producers Directors and content owners while subscription will take about 30 per cent,” he said.
Mohammed described Nollywood and the Nigerian music industry as the pride of the continent.
According to Mohammed, Nollywood is the second-largest TV in the world, creating about 2,000 movies annually, while the music industry generated $US7.7 billion in 2020.
The minister reiterated that the Nigerian economy is prepared and waiting for investors and global investors should take the advantage of the creative and TV sectors.
