2024-01-16 23:10:02
A little thumb in the African media landscape, New World TV launched in 2015 in Lomé won part of the broadcasting rights for CAN 2024, following those for the World Cup in 2022. The pan-African group claims cumulative audiences of 565,000 spectators monthly. In the competitive context of sports rights, can the Togolese channel recover new subscribers and compete with the big groups?
At the heart of New World TV’s strategy: conquer as many subscribers as possible. “ The model as such consists of proposing a project that is a little different from what is currently being done in the African audiovisual landscape. Our ambition is not to compete with Canal+but to propose something else, indicates Louis Biyao, lawyer and spokesperson for the group. In this case, we considered that in a village lost in the depths of Senegal or the DRC, people do not have enough resources. And so New World TV offers extremely competitive prices. It depends on the country. We have subscriptions that range from 500 CFA francs to 1,000 to 5,000. But we never exceed these 5,000 because the objective is to have access to premium television, quality television, but at very low cost. cost. » Additional argument: broadcasting and comments in the local language. “ So that those who do not understand French can follow what is happening on TV in their own language. »
Cultural proximity as well as big names on TV sets to encourage subscriptions: “ It’s valid as a marketing argument. And then politically and socially, it’s very interesting. But I don’t know if this is an argument that will be sufficient commercially. »
Expanding the audience, a mechanism not so obvious for Gérard Akindes, former professional basketball player, teacher-researcher specializing in sports economics. “ You need a lot of subscribers. This means unsubscribing those who are already well established. So we must be able to have a sufficiently strong continental commercial deployment with a marketing machine behind it. At the moment, they have event rights that last for a month. Is an event that lasts a month enough to switch Canal + subscribers to their subscription? The second question is: do they have the capacity to be present at the programming level, on the scale that Canal+ until today ? And there is an equally important element, these are the rights to major European competitions like the Champions League, the English league, the French and Spanish leagues which are also very popular in Africa and which are over nine months, ten months. Will New World TV be able to compete for these rights? »
Very expensive rights, which makes the return on investment difficult. In the past, others have failed, recalls Gérard Akindes, following the example of the Zimbabwean Kwesé Sports.
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