Where a mobile phone is easier to get than electricity and Big Brother is the most watched TV show

The fourth in a series of 7 reports I wrote on international media markets was released this week, this one focusing on select markets in English and Francophone Africa.

The publication of this report coincides with Discop, the trade show being held right now in Johannesburg, billed as “the world’s number one destination to acquire and co-produce content 'Made in Africa' and sell international film, television and digital content, adaptation rights and packaged TV channels into Sub-Saharan Africa.”

But what do we know about the media and technology landscape in Africa? Probably not a lot, which is a big part of why these reports were commissioned. Let’s start by taking a closer look at some key issues related to infrastructure and demographics in Africa:

• The African continent is the fastest-growing market in the world for mobile phones, and though most on the continent use mobile devices to access the internet, rates of internet penetration vary greatly from one country to the next.

• Is Africa and ‘internet first’ market? Yes and No.

• Internet penetration on the continent ranges from about 80% for Kenya to around 50% for Morocco and Nigeria and 2 to 5% for countries such as Burundi, Niger, and Sierra Leone
• Cote d’Ivoire and Senegal report mobile internet penetration of over 100%, meaning there are more phones than people

But before we get too carried thinking mobile connectivity will bring the 1.2 billion people of Africa into the world of digital content, it’s worth noting that over 600 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa alone lack access to electricity, making the present, not the future, extremely unevenly distributed on
this continent expected to double in size to 2.5 billion by 2040.

What about language distribution in Africa? 

Source: http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/african_languages.htm

• There are about 2000 African languages spoken on the continent across its 50+ countries 

• Two dozen African countries have English as one of their official languages.

• Over a dozen countries in Africa have French as one of their official languages, which represents about half of the world’s French speaking population of 200 million

But here's the big startling statistic: It is estimated that number of French speakers in the world will reach 700 million 2050, of which 80% are anticipated to be in Africa.

In terms of broadcast media, TV content in most African countries is a mix of programming produced regionally, foreign movies, and localized versions of reality TV franchises known around the world. Switch on a TV in Africa and chances are you’ll find shows such as Big Brother Africa and The Voice Africa in prime time alongside an assortment of regionally produced soap operas and talk shows.

To read the full report on Africa's media and entertainment landscape in 2017 click here.

It’s home to the world’s fastest Internet, Eating Videos, and Gangnam Style

“What is South Korea, Alex?”

If you were standing behind a podium on Jeopardy and uttered those words you’d be hearing the happy ding ding ding of a question correctly answered.

The 3rd in a series of 7 reports I penned on media in global markets has now been released, and the fun end of the Korean peninsula is the focus.

Source: http://www.mapsnworld.com/south-korea/where-is-south-korea.html

The country of 50 million is a high tech haven, for everything from the world’s largest manufacturer of mobile devices to leading edge virtual reality and augmented reality to what’s known as Hallyu, or the Korean Wave of popular culture. These Korean TV shows, films, and pop music first swept across Asia in the 1990s and in more recent years became part of the country's export cargo to the rest of the world. For most of us it came to our attention with Gangnam Style in 2012 but there’s a lot more to it than that.

South Korea is also a top exporter to the world of television formats such as Genius Game

...and twists on conventional cooking shows that combine elements of talk shows, drama, game shows, or travel shows are also a popular genre in Korea, and are often licensed for localization abroad. In other words there’s a good chance that your favourite crazy cooking competition show
originated in Seoul.

Perhaps most bizarre, to us Westerners at least, is the phenomenon known as Mukbang, or eating videos. These half hour videos feature people, usually in their bedroom or kitchen, grilling and eating things like meat dishes, soups, noodles, and dumplings. Doesn’t sound particularly exciting? I hear you. Yet videos like this one regularly net millions of views. Why? Because Internet.

South Korea’s dramas are also enormously popular outside of the country’s own borders. Descendants of the Sun, a romantic drama available in China on the iQiyi video streaming platform, pulled in close to 2 billion views as of early 2017. 

The exporting of popular culture, not unlike the country’s heavy investments in R&D programs and its technology infrastructure, has been carefully planned and promoted by the South Korean government for the last 20 years or so. Billions in public funds have been put into the country’s media and entertainment industries as part of the the official Hallyu program. And how has that worked out? By one estimate South Korea’s annual revenues from pop culture exports now exceed $5 billion.

For the full report on the media and entertainment industries in South Korea in 2017 click here.