By CHINEDU IBEABUCHI

Director General of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Ms. Arunma Oteh has advised the Bloomberg Group to ensure that its new African business TV station, Bloomberg TV.Africa, cuts across socio-cultural and economic boundaries.

Speaking during a visit of by Bloomberg Group to her office in Abuja, she said that Bloomberg’s TV Africa’s programme content should leverage sports to draw large audiences advising that, “Bloomberg should use content and news to generate interest in Islamic Finance through inclusion of the likes of Faith in Finance program in its schedule”. Oteh also counseled that Bloomberg Africa should include Francophone Africa in its marketing plans and strategy.

The station, according to the Commercial Director Bloomberg Group, Linsey Olivier, will be broadcasting live from Lagos business news, economics and financial markets information on Africa. The station which will commence operations in October 2013 would have Lagos as headquarters.

Olivier noted that Bloomberg Africa will bring about greater understanding of the African markets. “The bigger part of the story is telling it to the international audience” she added while noting that Bloomberg will make content to be easily available locally including through terrestrial distribution.

During the visit to the Director-General of SEC, the Executive Producer Bloomberg Africa TV., Mr. Kieran Baker said the group already has presence in some other jurisdictions like India and Turkey but now wants to tell the African business and financial stories “straight from source” in order to engender enhanced awareness of the business opportunities in Africa and attract more investors to the continent.