The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of General Entertainment, MultiChoice Africa, Yolisa Phahle, has asked the media to use digital technology to tell African stories, while emphasising that the rapid advances in digital technology in Africa has created new opportunities.
Speaking in Dubai at the 5th edition of Digital Dialogue conference organised by MultiChoice Africa, she said digital technology has brought innovation in content delivery most especially.
She charged Africans to embrace digital technology as it will “change how people consume our products,” adding that it should be a “collective responsibility to play an active role in making sure our continent benefits from this opportunity.”
Phahle said Africa should use the opportunity of digital technology to tell its story using the content.
She said: “In the midst of the ongoing digital revolution we collectively have the opportunity to not only tell stories that educate and inform African audiences.”
According to her, with digital technology, “we are in a position to take African stories to the world, and create a global market for what we do,” adding: “By using the internet and leveraging technology, we have the ability to reach audiences at a global level and the success of companies like Iroko TV, artistes like Davido, actresses like Lupita Nyong’o and the movie Black Panther are confirmation that the world is ready to consume African stories, celebrate African culture and embrace Africa.”
The CEO said as the world looks to the future of news and media organizations, “the conversation is focused on three words: content, technology and customer, which we believe will continue to be essential for any news or media organisation that wants to survive and grow in the future.”
Giving tip on survival, she said: “We have to find new ways of engaging more effectively with viewers when there are more choices than ever, more free content than ever and our customers are becoming more and more accustomed to receiving personalised content.”
On what MultiChoice has done Phahle said: ol”Our vision is to be the best African story teller in the world, at the same we also promise to bring our customers the best international stories. Being able to tell the right story, at the right time to the right person is our absolute focus and if we are able to leverage the technology, and become obsessed with pleasing our customers we will nullify the headwinds and use the tail winds to drive exponential growth for our collective future.”
She said MultiChoice was planning to start production on a number of epic African stories “and use new digital platforms to create a stage for Africa to shine on while continuing to work with the best African talent to tell Africa’s stories to deliver the incredible economic benefits to Africa’s creative industries..”
The 2018 Digital Dialogue Conference is a thought leadership platform facilitated by MultiChoice Africa in order to foster a better understanding of the future direction of the video entertainment industry in Africa.
Established in 2012, it is meant to create a better understanding of Digital Migration and its impact on Africa’s digital landscape.
Since then, the independent and growing platform has been critical in fostering a better understanding and building knowledge on video entertainment and Digital terrestrial markets while creating necessary conversations with thought leaders about various industry-related issues.