ACCRA, GHANA — Frustrated by the difficulty of accessing quality African content abroad, a group of Ghanaian entrepreneurs have teamed up to launch a service they’ve dubbed the African Hulu.
ReelAfrican.com, a new streaming video service now beta-testing ahead of a planned fall launch, will offer original African films and series using a model similar to Hulu’s.
Content will be free for all viewers, with revenue initially generated by selling a 10-second advertising spot for every 8-10 minutes of content. The company will split ad revenues 50-50 with content owners.
The site’s target audience, says Victor Mallet, one of the four co-founders, is the large number of Africans living outside the continent with no reliable way to watch movies and series from home.
“The market that wants to watch these films is in the U.S.,” he says. “We would like to see good content coming out of Africa, (but) there’s no way to watch it.”
The site plans to target the U.S. first, before expanding to the U.K. and the Caribbean.
Modest distribution networks for African films already exist Stateside. Specialty distribs offer DVDs of Nigerian and Ghanaian hits that are usually sold in barber shops or grocery stores owned by African immigrants. . .” More on Variety.com
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