Focus Nigeria


as non-intrusive as possible. We explain to people that you just have to watch a few adverts and you can see a whole movie” – Jason Njoku, founder of Nollywoodlove, an online entertainment business


“My company tries to keep things


Saint Obi on set


Jonathan pledged a $150m loan fund for the use of people in the “creative industry”, which is to be managed by the Bank of Industry (BOI). Whilst the money has been released to the BOI, for disbursement


to recipients that meet its qualifying guidelines, it remains to be seen whether it will be a lifeline for those in the industry, who have complained, with good reason, about the consistent lack of organised government support for the sector. That lack of support is not stopping Jason Njoku from carving


his own niche. He is the founder of “Nollywoodlove”, an online entertainment company based in Lagos, making Nigerian cinema readily available on the internet. Since December 2010, it has been buying up the rights to


Nigerian movies and uploading them onto its dedicated YouTube channel. “I was swept away with this wave of amazing content, which


when I looked at ways to actually consume it, there weren’t any – the legal distribution infrastructure just wasn’t there, so I thought, let


84 | October 2011 | New African


me just try it and add some value,” Njoku told CNN. Njoku’s company now employs more than 40 people and the


movies on its internet platform reportedly attract over 2.5 million views around the world each week. It makes money by showing advertising before its films and is


targeting over $1m in profits in its first full operational year. “We try to keep it as non-intrusive as possible, so we explain to


people that you just have to watch a few adverts to watch the whole movie.” Nollywoodlove became profitable after just two months of


operations, by selling advertising space alone, Njoku claimed. The most popular movie, according to Nollywoodlove’s


subscribers, is currently “BlackBerry Babes,” a comedy series about women obsessed with their BlackBerry phones. The first instalment of the four-part drama has been watched over 650,000 times, according to Njoku. Besides football, literary icons like Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka and, of course, the late musical megastar Fela Anikulapo-


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