Continental Broadcasting Service Nigeria Ltd, an indigenous media conglomerate, owns and operates Television Continental (TVC) News (the first 24-hour pan-African television news channel), TVC Entertainment and TVC News Nigeria. Its Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Nigel Parsons, speaks on the company’s expansion across Africa; its plans to become the continent’s best channel, its challenges and prospect. He says with the rich contents of its three channels, TVC is competing against well established international channels such as CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera and others. He speaks with select journalists in Lagos, Assistant Editor CHIKODI OKEREOCHA was there.
How has it been running a media organisation as big and diverse as TVC?
I have managed Al Jazeera English, which is bigger and I have done four or five other smaller launches. What is different about this one is that it’s very much an African project for Africans. Unlike Al Jazeera, where you can go and employ people from BBC, Sky or CNN and wherever; in TVC, we had to train everyone from the scratch. So, that was a bit more challenging and much more satisfying. You couldn’t just take people from a national broadcast here because they had that mindset, which you cannot change; the rest were young people we trained by ourselves. It’s been all good in terms of setting it up and running it. I guess in a big organisation like this, it’s very important that people learn to delegate. When I came to Nigeria, I found that most organisations were like pyramids; nobody wants to make decisions until they got to the very top. Whereas here, we’ve got a very flat kind of management where everyone in every department has responsibilities and makes their own decisions. As long as they are getting eight out of 10 right, then they are doing a good job. If they are getting three out of 10 right, probably they are in the long jump. But basically, I am the team builder, but everybody looks after his or her own department. The joy of it actually is the fact that we are all doing what we like doing. The joy is that we are the voice of Africans. Because if you want anything about America you tune to CNN. If it’s Al Jazeera, that is the Middle East; BBC, it’s Europe. But when it comes to Africa, it has to be the voice of Africa and we enjoy doing that and it’s been a big success story.
What are your unique propositions or what are you doing differently?
Before TVC came along, there was no pan-African channel. So, the big foreign channels will just parachute in whenever there is a disaster. So, 99 per cent of the news coming out of Africa was bad news; there was no positive news. It has changed slightly now because CNN has Voice of Africa, BBC has Window on Africa. But no one was really doing a true African eyes and no one was not just reporting the bad things that are happening, because they happen everywhere, but also the good things that are happening. So, we want to report the good, the bad and the ugly. We will criticise what’s wrong, but we also want to praise what’s right. That is why a lot of our programmes are celebrating the amazing things that are coming out of Africa-their culture, what is going on in the environment, the music. So, it’s a far more balanced view on Africa and it gives Africa a much more positive image in the outside world, because you have to bear in mind that we have the extensive distribution both in the United Kingdom (UK), France, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, and the United States. So, what we are doing in the way we are reporting Africa is not only seen by Africans, but also by people outside Africa, who realise another side to Africa apart from famine and war.
You said TVC is an African project for Africans. What would you say are your major challenges in trying to tell the African story from the perspective of Africans?
I think the major challenge has been, as I’ve said, training people up to the right standard and leaving all the baggage of old style of journalism behind. It’s one challenge that is not really a kind of a pan-African identity. I have noticed some people in Nigeria are very much interested in what is going on in Zimbabwe or Mozambique, but you do have lots of things in common on the programming side, which we do. It may be environment, health, women issues, music, and dance- all those things you do have in common, which is why we have gone for the excellent programmes that we have. We are the first of our kind. We couldn’t get trained hands from anywhere else so, we had to train everyone and we’ve done it and we have a great product.
You have three channels. Can we know the differences among them?
It’s clear and easy. One is an entertainment channel. In entertainment, it does have news; it does have discussion programmes, but it has lots of light entertainments like movies and kids’ programmes. Then we have the domestic news channel, which is really targeted at Nigerians and Nigerians in the Diaspora. And then there is a pan-African channel, which is probably the most ambitious in some ways. We are going up against the big international channels and within the industry, we’ve received dozens of awards. We are competing against the likes of CNN, BBC and others from Asia. So, we must be doing something right. Within the industry, we are recognised as the prime pan-African channel.
You won the Best Station of the Year Award recently. How do you plan to sustain the tempo?
We are the first channel of our kind and we are the market leader. Already, there are other people coming on to the market. Our job is to keep pushing up to the next level, to stay ahead of the pack. We want to be the best channel for Africa. That is where we are at the moment. We are leaders of the pack now; our job is to hang on to that.
How are you preparing to meet the June 2017 deadline for migration from analogue to digital broadcasting?
Already, everything here is high definition. Our infrastructure, our cameras, everything, and we are already sending digital test signals. So, we are ready, we already sending out digital testing.
Are there a few lessons you could draw from other stations?
Well, they’ve been in the game longer than us. For our domestic news channel, some of them are strong competition. They’ve been on DStv much longer than us so; they do have the audience. We are the new boys on the block as far as that is concerned. But we think we have a stronger product. And if you compare the stations on air you will see a lot more moving pictures from us; you will see a lot more live events from us. But I wouldn’t write them off; they are a strong competition. But we welcome competition; competition is what keeps you going. If there is no competition, then we just sit back and get complacent. Not only that, we cut across the social ladder. Of the three channels, we have the entertainment channel. If you look at the demography of Nigeria you find out that the youths constitute about 70 per cent of the population and that particular channel is targeted at them. And then we have the TVC News Nigeria, which is strictly news and current affairs. And if you look at the Nigerian youths, most of them don’t even watch the traditional television station yet they know what is going on. How do they get it? Social media. We are very strong there as well; we are very strong online; we are on Twitter, we are on Facebook, and other platforms. So, we cut across the spectrum.
In line with your pan-African outlook, how do you plan to consolidate your position and extend your reach to other African countries?
We are carried on other platforms in East Africa, South Africa, Zambia and Ghana. They are usually secondary platforms like Zuku in East Africa. Of course, it’s not as big as DStv. And as the Deputy CEO intimated, the demographic of the average DStv subscriber is different from your own Zuku subscriber. It’s just like here; the DStv subscriber is different from your Star Times subscriber. So, it’s very important now that we are on DStv here that we expand across Africa. We are in negotiation with DStv and that is kind of very important for us commercially because advertisers like this. So, yes at the moment its consolidation and as the commercial position improves, we will look to expand our bureau network. At the moment, we have bureaus in Johannesburg, Nairobi, Accra and London. So, we’ve got South Africa, East Africa, West Africa and Europe covered. We will look to expand our network.
What are you doing to further strengthen your news quality across the continent?
With our bureaus we’ve got correspondents. So, anything happening in East Africa comes out from our Nairobi office. In Kenya, Uganda or Somalia, Ethiopia, that also comes out from that office. Likewise South Africa, the correspondent that covers South Africa covers Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique, Namibia. Nigeria clearly looks after most of the west. We do have an office in Ghana, but anything that is happening, we send in crews to Mali, Burundi, and Rwanda they tend to come out from Nigeria. We would look to strengthen our local streaming network.
How robust are your facilities?
We have about 57 digital cameras. We have about 10 OB Vans and we have correspondents across the states of Nigeria. We have in East Africa, South Africa; we have in West Africa and also we have correspondents in New York and in London.
With this kind of agressive spread, where do you see TVC stand in five years’ time?
In five years’ time, we want to be on as many platforms as possible. Already, we are being approached by other international broadcasting organisations asking if we could be their partner in Africa, because there are not many channels like ours. We have picked up dozens of awards both in Nigeria (we are Nigeria’s channel of the year) and also outside. We are competing against the big established channels like CNN.
Can you tell us about yourself?
It’s a very long story, but to cut it short I went into journalism because I dreamt of becoming a war correspondent until I got sent to Vietnam and I decided this is not really what I wanted to do. But I did work as a journalist till the early 80s and became a desk editor for a worldwide television agency and I then got to do my first start-up; the channel is actually in Switzerland. That was in 1988. That was the channel that is called EBC; it eventually became CNBC. I got really interested in how companies work and setting them up. I did one in Switzerland, another one in Italy. I was Editor-In-Chief of Middle East Broadcasting, which became Ararabiya. The big one was Al Jazeera English. The opportunity to do the first pan-Africa channel was tempting. So, here I am and it’s been a great journey; I’ve enjoyed every minute here; Europe, Middle East and Africa to launch channels, but Africa is the most challenging, but certainly the most satisfying, because everything was from the scratch here. I have learnt a lot about the country and the people. Before I came here, I was very nervous because Nigeria from the outside, looks very scary. But it’s a country full of vitality and I think this is a project that reflects what is possible here.
