If you are looking for a new breed of Nigerian businessmen, look no farther beyond Jason Chukwuma Njoku, the CEO and the co-founder of iRoko Partners. He is inventive, ingenious, bold, focused and above all, hardworking. With a degree in Chemistry, Jason has revolutionized the entertainment industry in Africa. He upped the ante beyond the imagination of those in the industry for aeon. In this no-hold barred interview with ARM’s Akin Akingbala, Jason speaks on the entertainment industry and the future of his company. Enjoy.
How would you describe the online entertainment content distribution in Nigeria and indeed the whole of Africa taking into account the poor internet connection?
In one word – challenging. We have curated an incredible African film catalogue in our four years of existence, but our biggest audience is largely unable to access it at present, due to restricted Internet access. That being said, we are growing our home audience pretty quickly, as more and more of the continent is coming online. Whilst we wait for Internet access to become more accessible and more affordable, we have to ensure our content is best optimized so that those who can watch iROKOtv can do so without draining their data.
What is your subscribers’ base today compared to that of 3 years ago and in what market(s) are you doing well?
We still see the majority of our traffic coming from the West, notably the US and UK, but Nigeria is now our top 3 country for viewers, whereas three years ago, it was much lower down the top 10. This reveals that Internet connectivity and accessibility is slowly but surely improving, which is great news for us as we’re really super-focused on cultivating and servicing a homegrown audience.
Spotify, Tidal and now Apple Music, what’s you take on the battle for the soul of music lovers and are you also planning to come on board?
Making money out of the music business isn’t as easy as you’d think, especially in Nigeria where piracy is difficult to keep a lid on. We launched an African music platform, iROKING, four years ago – we have worked with some of Nigeria’s biggest music stars and have quietly built up a huge following, by offering an easy to use platform with a vast array of popular Nigerian music to download.
The major issue between content distributors and content owners is always remuneration. How have you been managing to resolve this?
We pay content owners a fair price for the movie licenses. In fact, we actually created a whole new revenue stream for producers when we launched iROKOtv – previously, they would find their content uploaded online, by internet pirates, and would not receive any remuneration for this. We pay for the online license and also invest in a legal team that brings down any illegally uploaded content on the Internet, so I hope that we have been a positive influence on the industry.
Could you do critical analyses of the entertainment industry in Nigeria and Africa, and compare it with those of the Western countries?
This one question is an interview in itself, the industry brings up that many questions and suppositions! Unlike the West, Nollywood has no central means of funding, be it from arts councils / government or from big moneyed studios and lack of investment has resulted in lower budget and, more often than not, questionable production quality. However, in spite of that, Nigeria has managed to organically grow the world’s second largest film industry, which is an incredible feat. Due to lack of organization, Nollywood suffered in terms of movie marketing and distribution, in my opinion, as it could have grown bigger and faster if the distribution model had been professionalized sooner. We feel that we’re rectifying this now, and that the entertainment industry will be impacted positively.
The $8m funding from Tiger Global, what is it all about and are you planning to go public soon?
In total, we’ve actually raised $25M from Tiger global, Kinnevik and RISE Capital. This money has been used to build out the company, purchase thousands of movie licenses and to invest in technology and a world-class team. We have no plans to go public in the near future.
Are you into production? If yes, could you tell us about some of your works?
Yes, through our production arm, ROK Studios, we have co-produced around 100 movies and earlier on this year, we released our biggest budget movie so far. ‘Thy Will Be Done’ staring Mercy Johnson, Mary Njoku and Ramsey Nouah and was directed by Obi Emelonye. It premiered at the BFI IMAX in London’s Waterloo (the first independent movie ever to do so) and the event was covered by the BBC, so there’s a lot of interest surrounding it. In fact, the film will be released on to iROKOtv in mid-June.
Our festivals and awards seem to be poorly organized, are you interested in organizing any of these?
Not really – our primary concern is content creation and distribution for the time being. As a company, we rarely attend industry events and you won’t see me at red-carpet events. I leave industry-related festivals and such things to more creative people whilst I toil behind my computer screen.
How would you describe the Nigeria business climate and in what areas do you think the government can help ameliorate some of the challenges facing your industry?
Doing business in Nigeria comes with its own set of unique challenges and setting up here isn’t for the feint hearted. I am sure government could improve conditions for start-up businesses, but actually I believe it starts earlier than when someone starts a company. We need to look at what’s being taught in schools – a stronger focus on ICT and design from a young age would help train the technical engineers of tomorrow, that would help business like mine source the tech professionals that are so much in demand.
What’s your business philosophy and what are your plans and projection for the Iroko Group in the next 10 years?
My business philosophy is to be bold. You can find my day-to-day business musings on my blog – jason.com.ng – iROKO is a decades-long venture for me, and I want to grow it into a total African entertainment company – one that can reach every single African and provide the best, most awesome entertainment for the billion+ audience the continent will have in the future.
