The anticipated goldrush for African creators sparked by Netflix’s 2016 entry into the market hasn’t entirely come to fruition, though the influx of investment from local and global streaming platforms has nevertheless been transformative for Africa’s screen industries. Budgets, production values and outputs are rising, and breakout hits — such as Netflix’s Nigerian thriller “The Black Book” and South African teen drama “Blood & Water” — highlight the power of global streaming services to deliver African stories to audiences around the world.
Yet as evidenced by Amazon Prime Video’s abrupt pullout from the African market in January, when the streaming giant announced it was shifting course to focus on “emerging” markets in Europe, a continent that was gearing up for the windfalls of blockbuster deals with deep-pocketed platforms also finds itself at the mercy of those companies’ sometimes fickle streaming strategies. “It feels much more like a studio system,...
Yet as evidenced by Amazon Prime Video’s abrupt pullout from the African market in January, when the streaming giant announced it was shifting course to focus on “emerging” markets in Europe, a continent that was gearing up for the windfalls of blockbuster deals with deep-pocketed platforms also finds itself at the mercy of those companies’ sometimes fickle streaming strategies. “It feels much more like a studio system,...
- 3/4/2024
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
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