Côte Ouest Audiovisuel, a key player in the African audiovisual landscape, is launching its SVOD platform: KIWI.
KIWI is the final stage in a strategic move that began five years ago: Faced with the still-embryonic advent of digital technology in French-speaking Africa, Bernard Azria, the iconic boss of Côte Ouest Audiovisuel, with his 18,500 hours of programs in French, English, Portuguese, and Arabic, grouped together within United Content of Africa, decided in 2017 that in order to continue the development of his company, he needed to take a position across the entire value chain: program distribution, of course, but also program production, editing and creation of channels, and finally broadcasting…
After creating the first dubbing company in sub-Saharan Africa, launching CO2—a talent incubator for the production of short formats—and editing several channels including NINA NOVELAS (Lat-Am novelas), AFRONOVELAS and COMEDIE (as their names suggest), and MAGNUM (dedicated to action films), which will soon be launched, Côte Ouest is launching KIWI, which marks a real break from its historical positioning, which was entirely focused on B2B.
From B2B to B2C
According to Bernard AZRIA, this B2B business is becoming increasingly narrow because, with the consolidation seen in recent years, it is now limited to around 15 players who share 90% of the market in Africa.
Targeting the general public thus makes it possible to broaden the scope of activity and respond to a strategic need.
Bernard Azria recalls: "When I worked for Coca-Cola, Roberto Goizueta used to say, 'You must put the product in constant danger of being consumed. That phrase came back to me when I was thinking about the future of our business, and I came to the conclusion that I couldn't just leave our 18,500 hours of programming sitting on a shelf. "
Control of content, an essential condition for success
For KIWI, the issue of the cost of acquiring rights, which was
the reason for Afrostream's failure
in 2017, does not arise, as Côte Ouest has a huge catalog. "Our control of content is such that this issue was not difficult to resolve. For more than a quarter of a century, we have been representing and distributing programs from major US studios, the global giant of premium telenovelas (GLOBO), the best African content producers (MNET)
, etc.
Even if everything is not rosy, now is the right time to launch; Digital technology is growing rapidly in West Africa, and for us it's also a matter of survival.
The entire catalog will therefore be available on KIWI at some point. However, at any given moment, KIWI will offer around 3,000 hours of programming at launch, then 7,000 hours once it's up and running.
As on Netflix, which—by way of comparison—offers around 5,000 hours of programming in France, there will be new and exclusive programs representing around 5% of the total offering.
Nevertheless, the creation of KIWI does not call into question Côte Ouest Audiovisuel's role as a distributor: the operational implementation ultimately boils down to a question of windowing. Who should be given the first exposure of a new series? How long should this right be granted for? Can a program be broadcast simultaneously on the KIWI platform and on a client television channel? These are all questions that will be resolved pragmatically over time.
Internal development
KIWI, which, after a few unsuccessful attempts with external companies, was finally developed in-house and has a team of nine IT specialists, is currently in the soft-launch phase, with the public launch phase scheduled for January 2022.
The platform will be organized around different themes: telenovelas, African series, African and U.S. cinema, cartoons, etc. It will also include linear channels that can be viewed live: Nina Novelas, Afronovelas, Comedies (African comedies), Magnum (action series and films), as well as news channels (TV5, France 24) and local channels (LIFE TV, RTI 1, RTI2, and RTI3).
KIWI will be accessible via OTT online at www.kiwi.ci
or through partnerships with telecom operators. "Our view is that content should receive the largest share of revenue, but this idea is not universally shared. However, we already have a few agreements with certain telcos such as MTN, and others are in the process of being signed,"
summarizes Bernard Azria, who dreams of bringing together all independent producers and broadcasters in French-speaking Africa around KIWI.