Afrigather Viewers from about 100 nations can simply entry Hausa movies and exhibits on Northflix, a platform solely for streaming Hausa movies.
Because the world slowly moves from TV to streaming platforms, Kannywood has been left behind because the trade doesn’t have the required funding and expertise to create movies and exhibits that match the standard necessities of world platforms like Netflix or Prime Video. This has led to an enormous hole as Kannywood movies have been not noted of the streaming revolution, depriving producers of a wider, extra international viewers.
At an occasion in Kano, the place he was invited to offer a lecture to graduates, businessman Jamilu Abdussalam had a dialog with veteran actor Ali Nuhu, the place the actor talked about the distribution issues wrecking the Hausa movie trade. The need to unravel it pushed Abdussalam to create a streaming platform, Northflix, that supplied all kinds of Hausa movies to individuals throughout the globe.
What has the reception to Northflix been like?
JA: We’re rising actually quick. Up to now 5 years, we’ve achieved over 100,000 subscribers from all around the globe. Once we began, we thought solely individuals in Nigeria would watch content material on our platform, however to our shock, now we have subscribers from near 100 nations. Individuals from Greece and Finland watch content material on Northflix, and that’s a terrific factor. We’ve been featured on CNN and BBC as nicely, which I consider speaks volumes about how far we’ve come.
What’s the connection between Northflix and Kannywood like?
JA: The connection has developed over time. Once we began, we used to hire movies on our platforms and break up the income with producers. After a couple of 12 months, we began to amass the content material licence from producers. So, we’re shopping for the licence that provides us the rights to be the unique streaming platform, however they’ll take the [same] movies to TV stations.
This relationship is the premise for our enterprise. We got here in for 3 functions. One is to manage the piracy drawback within the trade. Secondly, we need to present entry to a distribution channel the place individuals throughout the globe can have real-time entry to the content material. Lastly, we needed to enhance the standard of the movies Kannywood produces.
How do you navigate discovering high quality content material in your platform?
JA: Some of the difficult issues we skilled was choosing the movies to be streamed on our platform. There was a necessity for better-produced content material and higher tales if we needed to attraction to a extra international viewers. Individuals watch motion pictures of a sure high quality on platforms like Showmax, and you may’t count on them to go from that to low-quality content material. We needed to step up and be extra deliberate concerning the sort of tales we inform and the standard of content material obtainable on the platform, which meant being extra picky with movies and insisting that producers put in additional effort.
What we do to enhance the standard of the content material being produced within the trade is to affix the manufacturing workforce or produce unique content material for our platform. Proper now, now we have over ten tasks which have been scripted and so they vary from feature-length movies to documentaries and even TV collection. To date, we’ve produced just one TV collection known as Zaure (The Hall) to check the market, and it’s doing nicely.
One other problem we struggled with was piracy however I’m glad to say that we’ve solved that. We’ve enabled know-how that makes it unimaginable to file motion pictures straight from our web site which has vastly lowered the speed of piracy.
What are some challenges that you simply’ve encountered to date?
JA: As with each enterprise, a problem I’ve skilled is funding. With buyers from the Northern a part of the nation the place I’m from, it’s exhausting to promote them the concept of a streaming platform as a viable enterprise alternative. They’re used to conventional enterprise ventures so telling them about subscribers and the way they’ll yield income just isn’t what they perceive or need to hear.
However, buyers from different components of the nation or world don’t perceive why we’re solely a Kannywood streaming platform. We all the time get questions like “Why not embody different Nollywood or Bollywood movies?” or “What’s so particular concerning the northern leisure trade?”
What’s so particular concerning the northern leisure trade?
JA: I didn’t construct Northflix simply because I’m a Northerner. The explanation I began Northflix is as a result of Kannywood is a distinct segment market with loads of alternatives. There are over 200 million Hausa audio system around the globe, which is lots, and creating high quality content material in Hausa for these individuals is a good enterprise alternative.
What are the following steps for Northflix?
JA: We stay up for being listed as an IPO firm and promoting shares to the broader public, that’s our dream. We need to make Northflix larger and create content material of upper high quality content material that may compete with content material from international streaming platforms. Individuals watch Indian and Korean motion pictures even once they don’t perceive the language, and that is what we would like for Hausa movies and exhibits.
