Just weeks after launching in East Africa, Africa’s Netflix, iROKOtv.com, has signed a brand new international content package that will see its subscribers on the continent watch TV series and movies from around the world. The deal to have Hollywood, Bollywood, Korean and Telenovela content will complement the platform’s extensive Nollywood catalogue of over 10,000 hours and will cost for as little as $2.50 a month for subscribers throughout English Speaking Africa (ESA). According to Jason Njoku, iROKOtv.com Co-founder and CEO, “We have been passionate about bringing affordable content to viewers across Africa. This is just another milestone towards that. Internet TV will enable hundreds of millions of fans across the continent to finally be able to access awesome content. “We see the web and mobile platform almost as equal to DTH and DTT platforms in the next few years and our focus is on achieving this in Africa, supplying the 800-million strong population of Sub Saharan Africa (SSA) with the best content on the planet, be it from Nollywood, Hollywood or Bollywood.” This brings both Nollywood top series like Mercy Johnson, Majid Michel and Mama G and international online content package featuring Hollywood royalty for the subscribers. The subscription service allows for unlimited, commercial-free viewing and in an effort to conquer the ongoing challenge of expensive data charges across Africa, all new content will also be subjected to advance encoding, allowing files to be compressed and significantly reduce costs associated with video streaming, whilst keeping picture quality as high as possible. Whilst the company plans to expand its international library, there will also be a renewed focus on local films, TV series and documentaries with at least 50% of the iROKOtv.com catalogue being homegrown African content. Since its launch in 2010, iROKOtv.com has closed on $25Mn of international VC investment from Tiger Global, Kinnevik and RISE Capital over five rounds and is valued at over $50Mn.
