Stakeholders in the Nigerian entertainment industry gathered last
week at the Grand Ball Room of the Eko Hotel & Suites, Lagos, to
ruminate on how to build ‘the dream entertainment industry’ in the
country. The conference convened by the Nigerian Entertainment Today
newspaper (NET) identified some problems and proffered solutions. NGOZI
EMEDOLIBE was there:
The theme was apt: “Building the Industry of our Dreams”.
Incidentally, this is what everyone who gathered last week at Eko Hotel
& Suites, venue of the 2013 Nigerian Entertainment Conference, NEC,
must have pondered once in his or her career life.
Although the Nigerian entertainment industry has been on an upward
swing since the dawn of this millennium, there are still visible signs
of weaknesses in its vital operations, which, if not checked, could send
the industry crashing in no distant future. These and more were the
focus of the deliberations which gathered eggheads in the various genres
of entertainment like music, movies, marketing, sponsorship and media,
when they constituted themselves into facilitators, panellists,
moderators and audiencs to ruminate on the basics of making Nigeria
realise her entertainment potentials.
For
over six hours, facilitators like Kenny Ogungbe (founder of Kennis
Music and co-founder of Prime Time Entertainment); Amaka Igwe (Chief
Executive Officer, Amaka Igwe Studios); Kola Oyeyemi (General Manager,
Consumer Marketing, MTN) and Chris Ubosi (Chief Executive Officer,
Megalectrics) took 30 minutes each to talk about topics like ‘Are Record
labels endangered species?’; ‘The Nollywood Paradigm: Reflections of an
unapologetic Nollywood filmmaker’; ‘Relationship between Corporate
Nigeria and Entertainment: Parasitism of symbiosis’ and ‘Role of the
media in developing the industry of our dreams’, respectively.
The conference which opened with a speech by the Director General of
the Nigerian Economic Summit Group, NESG, Frank Nweke, recognised that
the Nigerian entertainment industry, if wellstructured, had the
potentials to contribute more than its current stake to the current
Gross Domestic Product, GDP, in Nigeria estimated to be worth $250bn.
Various statistics have previously put the size of Nigeria’s
entertainment industry at about $350m. In contrast,
PricewaterhouseCoopers, in 2011, put the worth of the US entertainment
industry at $754b as against the GDP reputed to be currently in the
neighbourhood of $16trl.
While this has very much been said at several previous conferences,
Kenny Ogungbe who took the floor to explain the intricacies of running a
record label in Nigeria harped on the need to let everyone operate
according to the forces of the market, noting that Nigeria with its
large population needs more than one copyright administration bodies,
considering what a single music album constitutes in terms of
intellectual rights. “My record company”, according to him, “has many
albums to her credit and I can tell you that each record that is made
means a lot in terms of copyrights administration. Of course, you would
be talking about rights to publishing, videos, and so many others”.
Some contributors in the audience noted that Nigerian musicians
needed to avail the listening audience quality content with messages,
but arguments identified that the musician who is a businessman also
needed to sell his craft according to what the society demands. Sound
Sultan, a music artiste and one of the panellists, summed it up by
asking his colleagues to create music that would have commercial
viability while standing the test of time, in order to attract income
when they have gone into retirement. One factor that was noted about the
music industry was the attitude of star artistes who often feel that
the problem of the industry was not their business.
Jimmy Jatt, another panellist, cautioned artistes with such mentality, that ‘stardom was not a permanent phenomenon’.
The second session handled by Amaka Igwe, which centred on the movie
industry otherwise called Nollywood, took the audience through the
evolution of the industry and the various strategies that got movie
business to its present state. She lauded activities in the industry,
noting that the giant strides which the industry has achieved was done
with little funding in the form of loans from banks. Some of the
problems she identified bedevilling the movie industry are poor guild
activities, piracy, (which she noted is currently thriving in Asian
countries) and capacity building.
“Thank God Ejike Asiegbu is here, he was the national president of
the Actors Guild of Nigeria, AGN, when J.T Tom West died. I called him
and told him that the guild should have regulations on how their members
work. I still think that J.T Tom West had no business being on a
location at that time of the night when he was involved in that
accident”, she said.
Ejike Asiegbu, a part of the audience, subsequently rose to put the
records straight about Tom West’s death. “After the accident”, he said,
“Tom West drove himself back to the hotel without knowing he had been
internal bleeding. Afterwards, he started feeling dizzy. People around
now took him to the hospital and by then it was late. When I was called,
I went to the hotel and was told he had been taken to the hospital”.
Ibinabo Fiberisima, the current national president of the AGN, a
member of the panel at this session, implored Nigerians to tolerate the
current trend where actors now always honour invitations to government
functions for what is termed ‘Thank-you-envelops’.
“We are hungry. We have to go. But I must confess, sometimes as the
president of the guild, I am blackmailed into attending such functions.
They sometimes tell me that I have to be there as the president”.
Kunle Afolayan, a filmmaker and panellist at this session reminded
his colleagues that there was so much money to be made in filmmaking,
hinting that films like Ije and Anchor Baby have proven this.
Division, along tribal lines and cliques was also mentioned as
factors that must be addressed in the industry, but actress, Nse Ikpe
Etim-Sule, noted that it is not exactly true. “I joined this industry
six years ago. In those years, I have worked with directors and
producers across ethnic lines. I think you must be good and attend the
right auditions to work in Nollywood”. Another panellist, Fidelis Duker
agreed with this. “Like I mentioned earlier, everyone is free to
operate. Nollywood currently has two shades. Aside the productions going
on in Lagos dominated by the old names in Nollywood, a new class of
producers are currently thriving in Asaba, working regularly with
another class of actors and directors for another section of the
market”.
Amaka Igwe, capped this argument by reminding the audience that every
filmmaker is in business to make money. “I am unapologetically a
commercial filmmaker. I make films because I want to make money and be
able to pay school fees and feed. Producers will first and foremost look
at the faces that would sell their movies. But if you think you are
good enough to sell a movie, it will be good to get some money and shoot
a film with every member of your family. It is nobody’s business who
you decide to use”.
The business side of the conference which opened with a lecture by
Kola Oyeyemi of MTN, identified that artistes should learn to know how
to draw the line between the ‘business of entertainment’ and the
‘business in entertainment’ hinting that being grounded in this concept
will determine how brands can work with entertainers on a symbiotic
basis. “Based on the present relationship between brands and the
industry; if you ask me whether the relationship is parasitic, I will
say, may be not; but there is a possibility that it is”.
A panellist for this session, Audu Maikori, identified that the
industry still lacked key professionals who make the job of
entertainment easier. According to him, “If you ask who the best
entertainment accountant, best director of photography or best
entertainment lawyer is, you probably will be guessing. The industry
needs these key professionals to be able to function optimally”.
The crew which handled the media session identified the importance of
the media and raised some obvious challenges on both sides of the
industry. Panellists however resolved that the media should be seen as
part of the entertainment industry, with the ultimate aim being
everyone’s well-being.
One point that stood out during the conference was the recognition
that one day is inadequate to talk about the problems of the
entertainment industry, but the organising crew, headed by Adekunle
Ayeni (Publisher of NET) said it would be a continuous exercise. “There
is no way everything would be handled today; it will be a continuous
exercise. At the next event, we would identify some more problems and
gather again to talk about them”.
Source: nigerianbestforum.com
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