By Princewill Ekwujuru

The pay-tv market is expanding exponentially,and StarTimes which officially launched in 2010, saw Nigeria’s huge population,  and rising middle class as a market hard to ignore. Six years after, it  has maintained a steady growth on account of combined consumer insight market strategies. Marketing Director, Oludare Kafar spoke to Princewill Ekwujuru.

Quality programming\ Content

Oludare Kafar

In addition to low fee for subscribers, we operate in 13 African countries including Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda. We are progressively acquiring contents that would bond it with Nigerian consumers. One of such contents is football and this is based on the understanding of love of the game in Nigeria where many are really obsessed by the game.

Football as a game has dominated other sports in Nigeria and the love of it has over the years grown tremendously in the hearts of Nigerians. Today, European Premier League, Laliga and Bundesliga and to a lesser extent Nigerian Premier League have dominated viewership on Tv among Nigerians. Various names of foreign players are easily mentioned in Nigerian circles and sometimes streets and roads experience less traffic when there are popular matches in Europe. It is also not different when Nigeria is playing major international matches. Football is to men what movies are to women.

We are assuring Nigerians on quality sound and picture delivery. We currently have more than 60 transmission base stations across Nigeria. After the Copa America, StarTimes which has about 150 channels in its bouquets  has plans to keep exciting Nigerian sports loving community with  plans to acquire other top notch sports contents for its subscribers.

We also have plans to associate with some local sports. We are also in discussion with other grassroots football. As we finalise details we will make them official. In addition to other contents, including movies and documentaries,  the gradual and steady acquisition of sports contents, especially football, largely followed by many subscribers is giving StarTimes an added advantage alongside the investment of  over N20 billion in the Nigerian market, this gives us the vigour to want to cut more market share in the pay television  market.

Broadcast rights

Based on the understanding that digital television platform  of which we have in the past secured broadcast right to some major sporting events and international football competitions, we  would from June  beam to Nigerians the Copa America competition which starts  from  June 3 through 26. We have also signed a fresh deal to beam the much anticipated Copa America Special Centenario edition live all over Africa.

The landmark edition which commemorates 100 years existence of Copa America and slated for US will definitely glue viewers to their seats and have them thrilled as most of the superstars playing in European clubs will be in live action at the championship with 32 countries competing in games across 10 cities.

Objective

Our objective is to excite viewers by bringing Copa America Special Centenario edition into the platform and we believes the various matches will provide sport loving subscribers with some high quality entertainment. This is a historic moment for the championship and will contribute greatly to the development and followership of professional football within the African continent.

We are excited to feed the appetite of football lovers all across Africa and are particularly glad that our viewers can enjoy all the games in its HD glamour and be a part by participating in our prediction games and winning fantastic prizes on StarTimes App and social media platforms.”

Participatory viewership

The participatory viewing means the broadcast of the football competition would be interactive because StarTimes would be providing live studio where the audience can participate to win exotic prices.  Every match day N300,000 would be given out for 23 days including recharge cards and StarTimes TV.

The matches will be played at late hours, in the night for Nigerian audience because of time difference but viewers would also enjoy analyses by  Nigerian sports analysts. There will be predict and win which would be displayed on the screen and viewers can participate in it.

”This is a big one for us because we know how important sports are to Nigerians. Therefore we are going all out to give full football content to our subscribers. He said broadcasting the competition to Nigerians means democratizing watching football content because as little as N1,200 on StarTimes bouquet, a subscriber could watch all the matches live. “We are giving value for money, top notch football content at very affordable price. This is because most of the best footballers would be at the competition, Lionel Messi, Suarez, Aguero, Sanchez and many more.

Promo

Aside enjoying superstars like Lionel Messi, Luiz Suarez, Sergi Aguero, Sanchez and many other notable players  in action, StarTimes viewers stand the chance to predict and win prizes like cash, LED Digital Television with inbuilt decoders, Projector Television sets and other prizes.