In one of his ever-detailed blog posts, IROKOtv CEO Jason Njoku announced 3 new services that the SVoD (Streaming Video on Demand) company will be introducing starting today.
IROKOtv is important because it is one of the only African media companies who have been able to establish a sustainable model to offer a streaming service on the continent. This year the biggest casualties where Econet Media and Cell-C who tried to throw a combined US$198+ Million at the problem but unfortunately crashed and burned…
Fortunately for IROKOtv, they soldier on -their 8th year in operation- and they will be introducing 3 new products:
International Content Pack
IROKOtv has acquired 3826 episodes of “Bollywood, Telenovelas, Kids, Turkish and Korean” series. The thinking behind this for the CEO is simple, series drive engagement more than films:
We are attempting to create and increase engagement with our audiences and series easily drive that. Today ~70% of our subscribers use the service monthly. We really need that to be 90% so 2020 content strategy is also about retention.
Jason Njoku – Founder and CEO of IROKOtv
Why all this and not Hollywood content? Affordability:
As you can see, mass market audiences cannot really afford or are willing to pay the prices for Hollywood content. So we acquired content that can be priced at their comfort levels.
This content bundle will be priced similarly to the Nollywood content plan at US$8.33 for 12 months. Less than $9 bucks for a yearly subscription. These are the simple things that services like TelOne’s DEOD failed to capture when they launched with prices competing with Netflix whilst offering nothing near the level of Netflix content in terms of both quantity and quality…
IROKO ShoutOuts
IROKO ShoutOuts takes the company into new territory as it looks to infuse social aspects in their application with literal shoutouts from celebrities to app users:
You can literally make someone’s year by getting their favourite Nollywood star to give them a personalised shoutout. For birthdays, for work promotions, for weddings, for graduation, for anything really. It’s definitely not an original idea but I don’t think it has been applied to for Africans and to bonafide real world celebrities, as we are doing. We are launching IROKO Shoutouts with some of the biggest stars of Nollywood, who have a cumulative social media following of 100m+ fans. For N50,000 ($150) fans will receive a personalised 60s shoutout. I have no idea whether this will work. But what I do know is if it blows? Well. Hold onto your hats! In my bones, this feels like a game changer for IROKO.
Jason Njoku
What’s the end goal?
Well, it’s clear that increasing revenue is one of those since both features being introduced will be paid-features. Outside of that IROKOtv’s CEO did share what the long game is with the implementation of these two new features:
- Increasing ARPU from $7.77 to $20-$25
- Achieving free cash flow positivity
- Getting 500 000+ paying customers by 2020
- Generating $9-$10 million in revenue by 2020
- A 2021 IPO with a valuation of $120-$150 million
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