"MTV always had an intention of going to Africa. The challenge was trying to find someone that can create a plan that made sense. For me, and for the business, and I think it was the right approach, it wasn't creating an African outpost just to have one - it had to be a real business; a profitable business."
"So with the London team I worked as part of our strategy team internationally, which is where I crafted a business plan, hitting it around the business, and eventually got it approved, and eventually launched our first MTV service in Africa, MTV Base (DStv 322) in 2005."
So says Alex Okosi, the senior vice president and managing director for Viacom International Media Networks Africa (VIMN Africa) who was interviewed by Nkepile Mabuse on African Voices on CNN International (DStv 401).
Today more than 90 million people have access to the content of MTV Base. which was established as a new TV channel on the continent on MultiChoice's DStv pay-TV platform.
"We knew that a music video channel like MTV could work. It's always difficult when you're sitting behind a desk trying to find data on Africa. It doesn't work," said Alex Okosi about trying to build the business plan of trying to establish MTV Base.
"South Africa was of course much easier to get data on regarding the ad market. Once it was done and I started presenting it to the business it made sense from a creative standpoint, from a financial standpoint, and just a growth standpoint and why we just needed to be in this great continent," said Alex Okosi.
"Quality is tough. In South Africa for instance, taking music clips, you had decent music videos. "The rest of the continent it was awful quite frankly. And we did research, because it was important to us to understand. You don't just put together a business plan."
"You need to do research to understand what kind of content would work. And we found a young viewer would watch something but it had to be of quality - otherwise they would spend time giggling and laughing at the quality, versus appreciating what they see on the screen."
"We had to create a benchmark for quality and put people on the ground in these different [African] markets that we deemed to be our key markets to train, to work with the producers and the artists in terms of how to create better music videos. It wasn't really the cost of it; it was just that people didn't really know how to do it," said Alex Okosi.
"To make it work, to make it a showcase for not just something for people who have the ability to have pay-television, but to the masses, we created partnerships with terrestrial players."
"So for instance with the SABC in South Africa, for instance in Tanzania, in Nigeria we created random blocks of MTV Base that we aired content within that block in access the mass audience to be able to get a taste of what we have to offer," said Alex Okosi.
