If something is really good online, chances are it will find its way offline soon enough and that’s what the team at iRokoTV is looking to do with its latest offering.
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The Nigerian online movie streaming site is launching a new Nigerian movie DVD collection. iROKOtv is the world’s largest online distributor of Nigerian movies, boasting a catalogue of over 5 000 titles.
This new venture is the company’s attempt to enter into the DVD market in order to reach the millions of Nigerian movie fans who do not have access to the internet.
Nigeria’s movie industry, colloquially known as ‘Nollywood’, is the second largest film industry in the world, producing around 2 000 movies a year. iROKOtv has selected ten of the very best quality movies to be distributed on DVD.
“They are now on sale in JoBurg markets including Soweto, Kempton Park, Rosettenville and Randburg. This is the first time iROKOtv DVDs will be sold in a beautifully designed and packaged format, with high quality standards and will cost no more than R30,” says iRokoTV.
According to the company founder and CEO Jason Njoku:
iROKOtv revolutionised the video-on-demand (VOD) industry for African entertainment when we launched, bringing thousands of movies online to Nollywood lovers around the world. In a short space of time, we were able to connect with the online African community but, in reality, the majority of Nollywood fans are offline and watch Nollywood on DVDs.
Access is the immediate challenge for VOD companies here. Until Africa comes online, DVDs will continue to be the primary platform to consume content, which is why iROKOtv has now entered the DVD market.
Currently the company says that 50% of its traffic comes from the UK and US, as Diasporan communities have access to cheap and reliable broadband. The company is hoping to capitalise on South African’s increasing interest in Nollywood by bringing the content to an audiences that struggle to access high quality, low-cost, legal content online.
Hence the shift to DVD sales, a distribution that makes sense for the African market.
