How we plan to promote African tradition, value with Ebru TV Africa
Your organisation has deep interest in education, health and hospital businesses. Why did it venture into television?The media, TV and entertainment are reality of the world today. Whatever you do, you need to have a leg in that part of the world in order to be understood better in terms of what you are trying […]
Your organisation has deep interest in education, health and hospital businesses. Why did it venture into television?
The media, TV and entertainment are reality of the world today. Whatever you do, you need to have a leg in that part of the world in order to be understood better in terms of what you are trying to do and to implement on social basis.
What is the focus of Ebru TV Africa?
EbruTV has been broadcasting in the last 10 years in the United States in English and in Europe in German language. Now it’s emerging with African content.
We are trying to Africanize it to satisfy our African viewers because it was initially focused on many areas which didn’t concern Africans much and as such it didn’t attract them. Now we have our African headquarters in Nairobi, we are already broadcasting from there. We are taking off again in Nigeria focusing on African news, traditions, customs, languages, culture and entertainment.
As a matter of fact, everything is going to be about Africa. We believe Africans would want to see what we do on Ebru TV Africa as having African focus and content and that is how it’s going to be. We are already making some native drama in Munbasa in Nairobi and we are making some movies and drama in Lagos. Soon, we are going to be meeting in Abuja with some producers and film makers from Nollywood in respect of this one.
Why did you choose Nigeria to pilot Ebru TV Africa?
Our philosophy behind the TV station in Nigeria is there many positive things in Africa than the negative that is being projected by the western media. I don’t want to be mentioning those channels that are only interested in grabbing the negative side of Africa to project it to the rest of the world but whatever its, we believe there are so many positive things about Africa and those are the things we want to project to the rest of the world. Positivity about Africa is our news value.
We will be focusing on development, economic growth and the beauty about the continent’s culture and every other thing. We would like to show to the world that there are so many positive things in Africa particularly in Nigeria. We will focus on all the areas of the continent that have been deliberately neglected. This is our philosophy, it’s our focus in Ebru TV Africa.
What programmes are you planning to feature on your channel about Africa?
We have three hours programme called ‘good morning Africa’. It’s going to be connected to our stations in Senegal, Nigeria, Nairobi, South-Africa, Kenya and other countries of Africa. After this, we will be having another news programme for one hour and at night there will be another news programme for one hour. In between the news hours there will be drama, commentaries and children programmes which have already started in Munbasa.
This will be the content. Drama will be made in Nigeria with Nollywood because we want to give our viewers the African taste. We called it Ebru TV Africa so it must have African content and the face of Africa.
What is your partnership with Nollywood all about?
Some agencies are arranging a reception for some producers from Nollywood. They will be introduced to Ebru TV Africa in the scope of our TV on what drama they are going to be featuring, what particular areas we will need Nollywood help and how is it going to be done.
Meanwhile, we already have some producers and film makers from there and we are working with two of them. They are producing some dramas for us.
How much will this project cost SBC in Turkey?
As I have said earlier, Ebru TV is not a new TV station. It’s a subsidiary of Samanyolu broadcasting company which is one of the leading TV stations in Turkey and the surrounding countries. It has more than 2o channels in different languages.
For a TV station that has been around for more than 25 years, it has a lot of equipments, staff and lot of influence. So, for us to have another branch is not a big deal at all. It’s not costing that much as people might think because when you look at the demand that is coming from other countries that we are operating from it balances very quickly.
What are your experiences and the challenges so far?
The film industry in the country have made tremendous development. But when it comes to utilizing the material and equipments which are necessary for film making or drama it still needs great experience. I think Nollywood is in the process of gaining more experience and when it reaches certain level we should be ready to watch some standard movies from it.
What we are doing with them to help in this regard is to bring our own cameras, lighting equipment and other things that will help to produce a great movie then we can negotiate the price.
If we do all this-bringing our modern equipments to produce a standard movie it will result in we even training some of the people we engaged from Nollywood. At the end some of them will benefit from the experience we are offering them.
How is the news segment of your TV doing in Lagos now?
To start a TV and have it going continuously is the most important thing for television business. You have to prepare your things and put them in the pool.
So what we are doing now basically is to try to fill our pool with news, drama, commentaries and other programmes. Once we are satisfied with what we have, we will start broadcasting. Right now, we are producing news on a daily basis. We produce news about Nigeria focusing on positivity or I should say the propaganda of Nigeria which we are happy and proud to be doing.
How many Nigerian media professionals are you planning to engage?
I cannot say precisely the exact number of Nigerian journalists that we are going to recruit but I can tell you it’s going to be a huge number. Why? When it comes to the history of Nigeria journalists here have never stopped working.
There are great journalists here and they are working so hard. They have good experience. Definitely, Ebru TV Africa will like to benefit from this. We will recruit huge number of them in our news studio and other areas of our operation. We already recruited some as correspondents and camera men. We planned to recruit huge number of journalists in Nigeria.
How do you plan to cope with competition from existing TV stations in Nigeria?
I mentioned SBC earlier on. The experience is being transferred from there. We started it from a humble and modest TV channels with many competitors but today it’s the leading TV company in Turkey.
If you focus on your principles and objectives there is no how you will not succeed. This is what we are going to do here in Nigeria and in the rest of African countries where we are operating.
Your organization is into education, health and hospital businesses. Are you trying to use the TV to project this interest?
Each sector of our business has its own focus and objective. Nigerian- Turkish hospital is only three months old but it has to prepare the ground for itself because that is why we engaged resource people.
The mentality and philosophy they have is to have better health standard in Nigeria. The same thing for the Nile University. Good education: Do Nigerians deserve it? They deserve it and they are working to achieve it. That was the foundation we also have in all our schools in the country.
Looking at it from this perspective, what is your experience about Nigeria?
Working in Nigeria is a great experience. Just this morning when I was coming to work, I was discussing with my wife about Nigerian people. I told her that Nigeria is a country with people who knows how to treat people well. They are polite and also knows how to take the country to world standard but they only need to be given the right platform to do so. I have no regret coming to Nigeria.
Since 1998 the relationship we have with Nigerians, government, the communities have been growing on a daily basis. From schools to university, health to hospitals now TV station which means we have been investing here to the last kobo we made in Nigeria. Soon, Ebru TV Africa will be the leading channel that every family in Nigeria and the rest of Africa will always like to watch because we are family oriented.