Tonight MTV Networks Africa will celebrate the 5th anniversary of the music channel MTV Base (DStv 322) with a star-studded party for ''Africa's MTV'' which just changed it's channel look and feel (that story HERE).
I have the exclusive first interview with Alex Okosi, senior vice president and managing director of MTV Networks Africa.
I spoke with him about how MTV Base has grown, what some of the challenges are facing MTV Networks in Africa, and the strengths for MTV Base on the continent. He spoke with me about the fickle youth marget that's MTV's target audience, why TV is important for MTV, MTV Base's new on-air look and feel and whether MTV Base will stay with the music.
For the very interesting interview and what MTV is doing and is busy with in Africa, click on READ MORE below.
With MTV Base turning 5 years old, how has the channel grown?
The channel has definitely grown in terms of the content we're offering the pan-African audience. As you know we cater for quite a diverse range when it comes to the audience across Africa. We work really hard to develop our music strategy and our talent strategy, meaning that we source content, we're building our relationship with artists across the continent and we've worked with artists just to make sure that we create the best level of music video quality that we can air on the channel.
The output from a visual and creative perspective is definitely much higher especially related to African continent since we started. We did that through quite a number of things. A couple of years ago we started making music video workshops, we brought international directors in to work with our pan-African directors and it was almost skills-exchange workshops.
That's part of the things that we've done to make sure that the quality of the continent on our channel has been upgraded. Also from an off-air perspective we've been doing a lot of things to make sure that we're driving awareness of the brand. Of course we launched our MTV Africa Music Awards (Mamas) on the back of MTV Base. So the growth of the channel has been from both a creative perspective in terms of what the channel looks like and output – as well as the events that we've supported and talent across the continent.
I'll ask you now about the challenges, but what are the strengths for MTV Base as you've developed it over the past half a decade?
I think that number one it is the place to come to if you want to see pan-African content of good quality. I think we definitely not only have gone out with a mission to do such, we're a channel where we do not patronize our continent just to say ''we are African'' – we deliver continent that is both international and local and content that again we take a lot of pride in creating.
We're proud of the content that is shot here in Africa and that we're getting from our international pipeline. So you get a combination of international and local content that you wouldn't see anywhere else and that's important to us. Of course the quality of what we put out there is immense and we support that with a 360 experience for not only our partners but also our consumers with events and online propositions as well.
And then some of the challenges? What are some of the stuff that you think about at night or maybe keep you awake at night?
Ha ha. What keeps us awake at night is obviously that we always want to be at the pulse of youth culture. As you know, it is kind of the nature of young people that they're ever-changing their attitudes and their tastes. The one day they want more longform shows, the next day they like more music. Then of course their attitudes and tastes are also constantly changing.
So, what keeps us up is to try and ensure that we're ahead of the trends so that we are relevant to them on a daily basis. Then also combine that with the challenge of really trying to cater to the entire continent in an attentive way that makes them feel a connection to not only what we are doing, but also feel like they are a voice and have a voice and that they can communicate with one another through our channels. That is also something that we also work very hard on and keeps us awake at night.
Then Alex if you can maybe talk a bit about MTV Base's new look and identity. How did that come to be and why now?
For us, as part of our 5th birthday we wanted to refresh the look. As you can see the graphics are quite bright, it incorporates a contemporary colour palette. We modernized the logo and the navigation. We wanted to introduce a high standard navigation that enable viewers to know what shows are coming up next.
Also if you're watching a music video you get the opportunity to see what music video is going to come up next. So those are the things we introduced as a way of remaining cutting edge and making sure that our viewers are getting new experiences on our channel that enables them to know what is happenign with our channel and makes them excited.
You mentioned the target market. We know they're fickle and it's very hard to firstly command their attention and then keep it. There's a lot of talk from America and Europe about the TV model and looking at how to possibly adapt it. Is that a potential problem for Africa or not so much yet? Is that something that you guys are worried about?
I think it depends on what market you're talking about. There is actually two markets. You have you're high income or high LSM market that you'll find is completely wired as much as the American market. So for instance young people are online, they're chatting with their friends, they're instant messaging and they're getting their information from watching content not just on television but also online and their mobile phones. So there is that trend in the market place and we're definitely catering to that.
We have www.mtvbase.com which has a lot of interactive elements.
Yes, there is the mature state where Europe may be, where young people are online and on their mobile phones and interacting with content on a day to day basis. Africa is not yet there, but I know that we definitely will get there. I think we actually may ''leapfrog'' some of the ''developed markets''. We believe there is still a lot of relevance for television. TV is still rated as the number one medium for young people when they're looking for entertainment. So you've got to remain in that space so that you can remain ahead of the game in the digital media space.
MTV in America has become much more reality based and we're seeing some of that here. We still see a lot of music here on MTV and MTV Base. Is that going to change, and if yes – why? What is your current programming strategy and how do you see that in future?
I guess, to be quite frank, in the US market, they tend towards more longform shows, your Cribs, your Diary type shows and your reality shows.
The reason is that that market has a mich greater affinity for that. In Africa we do air a combination of both – the best of both worlds. We know that the taste of young people on our continent is that they do like some longform stuff but they want to see stuff that is really good quality. They also want their music.
For us, the way that we're approaching this is that we want to stay ahead and adapt to what the changes and the attitudes of our consumers are. For right now even more so they wanted music which is a little bit different from our US market where they actually want less music and want more longform. For the moment we will continue to offer that combination of music and longform content to make sure that we cater to their taste.
MTV Base is channel 322 on DStv
