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The motion picture industry has been evolving at every given time and age. As the scripts keep improving, so also are the qualities of movies produced. This is what applies to the American film industry known as Hollywood; the Indian movie industry called Bollywood and the Nigerian type christened Nollywood, aside the ever flourishing Chinese version of the ‘woods’.
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In Nigeria, the industry which virtually started without the input of government till now has grown in leaps and bounds. That at the turn of the 90s, it metamorphosed into what is today known as Nollywood. That was by the advent of a language movie done in Igbo called ‘Living In bondage’.
From then on, the Nigerian film industry never remained the same. Week after week movies are churned out on shelves from different locations. It started in Lagos to Enugu, moved to Asaba in Delta state and now in other parts of the country but Asaba remains the hotbed of location in the country at the moment.
As the industry grew, opportunities began to unfold and with the advancement of technology, the industry began to gain momentum.
For instance, when mobile phone was introduced not many knew that the apparatus would further expand the frontiers of the industry until various applications began to be introduced thereby making it easier for people to watch movies.
Before now, it has been complaints galore by movie producers of how marketers mainly based in Idumota and Alaba areas of Lagos state rip them off of their hard work but with more people purchasing the mobile phones and coupled with other opportunities on the internet, it has become almost ‘uhuru’ to filmmakers who can now bargain their worth with emerging online platforms on ways and terms of distributing their works worldwide.
With the help of the internet many technology savvy individuals are latching on the opportunity to offer services outside the shores of Nigeria as producers smile to the banks as well as the service providers who rake in millions.
One of such persons that seized the opportunity early is Jason Njoku of iroko tv, the success of that platform has opened the eyes of so many others who are now making more progress in that line of business.
One of such leading online streaming platforms is Ibakatv. Since its inception in September 2011, the platform had carved a unique niche for itself in the market. The company which prides itself in getting the best of Nollywood movies for its numerous viewers is gradually and steadily making use of every available opportunity to daily improve on its services.
Sitting at the helm of affairs of the unarguably rising internet company to watch out for is, Blessed Idornigie – an unassuming workaholic whose aim is to make his company the numero uno in the industry. From all indications, he is closer to his dreams than ever before because of the concept, dedication, determination of the entire team who are working round the clock to achieve the feat.
Idonigie’s hunger to come up with something more innovative and competitive is the driving force that made him research on Nollywood and he discovered that Nollywood content is highly in demand within and in the diaspora. He also discovered that the industry needs more competitive and more innovative ideas in online movies streaming and distribution, content immortalization and security.
At age 27, adventurous Idongesit had worked in five different companies before discovering Nollywood.
In one of his interviews, he said: “The aim for me was to create a platform that will become the viewer’s choice destination in African Internet entertainment. That was the idea behind launching of ibakatv-a new distribution platform for Nollywood to give viewers a plethora of exciting choices in accessing the much-desired Nollywood movies.”
In September 2012, Ibakatv acquired YouTube Premium Partnership and with four major channels, iBAKATV|NOLLYWOOD, iBAKATV|YORUBA, AFRICAMAGICCLIP and IBAKATV with a monthly hit of about 6m to 20m at Estimated Watch Time of about 80M to 200M as at today. This success on YouTube was one of the motivating factors that inspired the company to create its own official online movie-streaming platform called IBAKATV.COM.
Although the internet or online movie streaming business is relatively new in Nigeria and Africa at large, iBAKAtv has grown to become the world’s largest online catalogue of PREMIUM Nollywood movies, with over 15,000 hours of incredible movie and TV content streamed on-demand. It is the first as at today in delivering video-on-demand (VOD) in Africa and deliver the easiest, safest and most affordable means of watching the very best of Nollywood content. It provides an SVOD service where, for as little as $7/month, subscribers can access our vast catalogue, wherever they are in the world, at home or on the go, via an internet-connected computer, tablet or mobile.
‘’Our primary focus is to make our content as easily accessible as possible; to create the shortest distance between people and what they watch. Part of its strength is up-to-date sophisticated and unswerving technology powering everything that they do; from streaming in different bandwidths, to providing downloads in Africa, to providing 24/7 excellent customer service and managing buffering issues, which is why the company is today recognized as being one of the continent’s leading technology companies.
“In addition, Ibakatv is YouTube’s biggest premium partner in Sahara Africa, which has built a global audience of over 500 million video views, 5 billion estimated watch time and over 1 million unique subscribers from over 220 different countries which includes, United State, United Kingdom, Nigeria, Canada, South Africa, Kenya, Ghana, Uganda, Spain, Australia and many others, we generate more than 1million hit daily.”
And as a result, at the You Tube Awards 2016, ibakatv/Nollywood smiled home with the award of ‘Top Subscribed Nollywood Channel.’
Its reach is also felt across various mobile devices.
Need we say more?
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