Africa Sinks Further Into Neocolonialism, As Imperialist Company Takes Full Control Of Africa’s Biggest Media Company, “Multichoice,” Owners Of DSTV

As Africans most especially Pan-Africanist celebrate the gradual kicking out of colonialist and seizing power mostly via the efforts of Malian, Burkinabe and Nigerien Military Junta as pan-africanist admire the regime change which has brought joy to the people of this west african countries even as this military juntas led by Captain Ibrahim Traore of Burkina-Faso have become heros in the eyes of blacks globally, Africans, Pan-Africanist and African youths who couldn’t wait to experience neocolonialism expelled from the continent along with their alleged puppets in power.

As a seasoned(Nollywood/African film) Publicist and Administrator,who has been a part of the African creative arts and media ecosystem, before transitioning into diplomacy hence specializing in cultural and public diplomacy, I consider the African media my home, most especially my colleagues in the African film industry consider DSTV(under the umbrella body Multi-Choice) as ” number one” African film distribution platform for a long time before even several others came on board like the streaming platforms.

South Africa’s Multi-Choice owner’s of DSTV dominated media ecosystem as the largest cable media platform on the continent with millions of subscribers across Africa which the African film industry has leveraged heavily on for the distribution of her films most especially Nigeria’s “Nollywood”.

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Multi-Choice DSTV also took very good advantage of the huge market Nigeria has considering her huge population and having the second largest film industry in the world in terms of film production quantity.hence ” African Magic” channel focused on distributing and showcasing Nollywood films across Africa and beyond,though other channels too like “Akwaaba Magic” distributed and showcased Ghana’s Ghallywood films,same as “Maisha Magic” for Kenyan Riverwood films,”Zambezi Magic” for Zambian films,”Pearl Magic” for Ugandan films, etc though African Magic dedicated to showing Nigeria’s Nollywood films has gathered much more viewership for DSTV across Africa and beyond hence won more advertisers and other commercial opportunities to or for the cable channel and keeping them in business.this also led to DSTV hosting an African film awards event called African Magic Viewers’ Choice Awards popularly known as AMVCA which has become one of the biggest African film industry awards and has been hosted in Lagos Nigeria for years now and i openly critic why a so called African film industry awards event should be hosted solely in Nigeria despite attending some editions.though they seem to have taken that decision because of the huge commercial success they’ve derived from Nigeria,even also with their “Big Brother Africa” reality show also and they turned it to “Big Brother Nigeria” though still bring in other Africans from Kenya,South Africa and co to participate in their produced reality TV show.

Multi-Choice DSTV has been Africa’s own media and a dominance force even till now that American streaming giant Netflix and others penetrated African market.

Multi-Choice DSTV apart for buying Nollywood and African films hence helping with distribution of the films,and also producing and buying other media contents even in sports with their supersports channel for football fans majorly,they have really dominated the African media ecosystem.
Though we’ve been calling for the African Government and Business community to help support the African creative arts and culture ecosystem by setting up other cable stations and streaming platforms fully owned by Africa and for Africans if we must have control of our African narrative and true African story as part of our cultural diplomacy tools used as soft power to further foster pan-africanism and the true African renaissance.now instead of Africa gaining more control of her media which is her own tools and power to control the African cultural heritage narrative been told from the African true view via without cuts and control from Imperialist via their media organizations.now we are loosing more grip instead of getting more grip hence this is a setback for pan-africanism and the African creative arts and culture ecosystem as well as media.

Dr Jamezany James
Cultural Ambassador
Head,Azania Filmmakers Association (Pan-Africa)