Nigeria Content Online

The latest television talent hunt in the country, Nigerian Idol, debuted on the small screen last week.

Nollywood star,
Genevieve Nnaji attended an exclusive preview organised by the show’s
producers at the Sheraton Hotel, Lagos, on November 21. Present at the
event were two of the three judges on the show, singer Yinka Davies and
African American entertainer, Jeffrey Daniel of Shalamar fame. The
preview was anchored by the show’s presenters, Anis Holloway and Misi
Molu (aka Yemisi Fajimolu).

Also in attendance
was Rotimi Pedro, CEO of Optima Media Group, current holders of the
Idols franchise in Nigeria. He talked to NEXT about his company’s plans
for the show, as the search begins for the next Nigerian superstar.

The Idol
franchise first came in to Nigeria in 2008 but was discontinued after
only one season amidst controversies. Why has your company picked it up
and why would you be more successful with it?

Looking for the
next big star in Nigeria is something I think that is ripe at this
point in time. Over the last few years, there has been a huge
renaissance of Nigerian music. I have a two and a four-year-old kid.
When I was their age, I was singing to Shalamar and Kool and the Gang;
those were my mentors. But kids these days are singing to Banky, D’Banj
and P-Square. These are the people they know now. They don’t know about
the American scene anymore. Like I said, there is a huge renaissance of
Nigerian music and having a huge franchise like the Nigerian Idol is in
line with the mood of the country. This is the reason why we went into
it.

Is this strictly a business decision for you or is there also an altruistic desire to invest in Nigerian music?

The way we have
positioned Nigerian Idol this time around, it can never be about the
commercial aspect of it. It is purely about the altruistic, looking for
the next talent and making our contribution to the Nigerian music
scene. Over the last ten years we have done very well with sports and
we now want to make our contribution to the music sector. We are in it
for the long term. We aim to develop the next talent. Our franchise
covers 44 African countries, not just Nigeria. In the next couple of
months, we are going to launch East African Idol and the Ghanaian Idol.
We are about discovering and nurturing the African talent over the next
five years so we are in it for the long haul.

The last Idol
winner in Nigeria is yet to fully make his mark on the Nigerian music
scene, especially after much publicised misunderstandings with the then
organisers of the show. What should we expect from and for the winner
of Nigerian Idol?

The last holders of
the franchise in Nigeria lost it due to this issue of non-compliance to
obligation. So because of such issues, the owners of the franchise,
Fremantle, were looking for a respectable Nigerian/African company that
could actually project the franchise for the next few years and my
company, Optima Media Group, came along to pick it up. The [winner of
the] Nigerian Idol season one would be recorded and release an album on
Sony-BMG and all obligations in accordance with the franchise would be
respected.

Simon
Cowell expressed disappointment at the fact that many American Idol
winners had failed to become big stars. Any such fears here?

I think that
Nigerians have the ability and we have the opportunity to discover raw
talent in this country. As Jeffrey Daniels [a judge on Nigerian Idol]
said, there are people from the creeks of Ajegunle and the Niger-Delta
who may never have the opportunity for their 15 minutes of fame but
Nigerian Idol is giving them that opportunity to come out and represent
this great country of many talents. Based on this idea, we do not think
we would have any dearth of talent or problems discovering one. We had
ten thousand people that registered and above five to six thousand of
them came to the venues, three thousand in Lagos alone; surely, there
must be one or two stars in that number.

Tell us more about your company

Before we went into
music, we were mainly into sports. We hold at least 80 percent of the
market share in terrestrial sports television in this country. We have
done that for over ten years. We have now gone into music and
entertainment generally. Apart from Nigerian Idol, we would be handling
other shows like ‘Got Talent’. We have already done ‘Don’t Forget the
Lyrics’. Basically, we are building a pedigree in quality production of
music formats.

So far, much of your content is based on foreign franchises. Do you see yourselves developing totally indigenous content?

We believe in the
global village. A Nigerian guy in the Niger-Delta knows about what goes
on in North America and Europe. We want to harness the power of
globalisation and promote our own. The world does not live in isolation
or with a nationalistic toga anymore. The ethos of our company is
plugging into the global network and delivering for our people. Even
though we bring these international franchises to Nigeria, we would
leave our own mark on it. The idea is to use a global platform to
project the Nigerian image and artists that would cross over and
conquer the world.