By Ikenna Emewu from Beijing

China’s largest private sector media organisation with special focus on Africa remains an undisputable hub of African employment in the country.
A visit to the corporate office of the orgnisation at the Kechuang District of Beijing convinces you.
It sometimes looks like a workplace in Africa with the high density of African employees. There is a reason for it. StarTimes, the company solely powering digital TV innovation on the continent, knows where its bread is buttered with its African target market.
In the past seven seasons, since 2011, it has sustained the tradition of hosting African countries in Beijing for the continent’s digital TV migration, assisting in financing and manpower training and at the same time making good its business of sustaining its dominant market share in the sector in Africa.
Truly, StarTimes targets business, but with a friendly approach that keeps both parties, African countries and themselves, winning from the partnership. To a large extent, the partnership has been working as attested to by about 30 African information and communications ministers and 16 other countries that sent non-ministerial delegates.
Nigeria’s Information and Culture Minister, Lai Mohammed, was one of the ministers that praised and appraised the efforts of StarTimes in Africa’s TV development as commendable. Mohammed was also at the digital TV conference of the orgnisation in 2016. And the company accords Nigeria high priority for being the country in Africa with the highest subscriber base of about five million costomers.

Huge African investment
The group, which operates 480 channels, including its own content channels in all information sub-groups, said it has invested at least $260 million in Africa with network covering 32 countries and linked up 81 cities with digital service, has helped in enhancing digital TV penetration in the continent and also in human resource development with training for African workers in their native countries and China.
They also develop African content and support the countries in doing the same, and many times in liaison with Chinese partners.
In Nigeria, for instance, the company has developed channels in Igbo, Yoruba and Hausa languages, each with designated channels.
At the conference this year, over 400 delegates attended, with over half the number from African countries, and promised that the conference would hold its eighth edition at the same venue next year.

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World Cup telecast to Africa
StarTimes, in March, secured the telecast rights of the 2018 World Cup to African countries.
This was announced by the Chairman of the group, Pang Xinxing. The sole broadcast rights, covering all the matches of the World Cup live in all sub-Sahara African countries with the exception of South Africa, was announced Tuesday.
StarTimes’ deal with FIFA broke the monopoly of MultiChoice of South Africa, owners of DSTV, that had been sole telecast rights owners. This places StarTimes on equal footing to beam the World Cup, the globe’s most celebrated football event, to sub-Sahara African viewers.
Further on the StarTimes expansion and sports rights, it also won the broadcast rights of 2017 FIFA U-20 World Cup, FIFA U-17 World Cup, FIFA Beach World Cup and FIFA Confederation Cup, all in 2017.
It also secured the right to broadcast the 2018 FIFA Women’s World Cup and FIFA U-17 Women Word Cup in 2018.

Furthering FOCAC gains
The theme of this year’s African Digital TV Development Seminar was “Universalise Digital TV and Enjoy Smart Life.” It was attended by almost 400 participants from 43 countries for the main purpose of sharing knowledge around the digitisation process.
All countries are required to make a complete switch from analogue transmission to digital, following the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) agreement.
A digital broadcasting plan, covering 116 countries (mainly in Africa and Europe), was agreed to for the frequency bands 174–230 MHz and 470–862 MHz at the ITU Regional Radio Communication Conference in Geneva in June 2006.
As the conference drew to a close, the participants agreed in a joint statement that the forum in the past seven editions had been a great success and wished that there would be better days for the partnership between StarTimes and Africa, which the organisation stressed was part of the implementation of the alliance between China and Africa, powered by the Forum for China Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) platform and also an actualisation of the ideals of the Belt and Road Initiative of China launched a week before the StarTimes event, which targets global economic integration in diverse ways and sectors.