Intense debate between pan-African media actors in the framework of the 1st edition of Global Mind Talks organized this Thursday, June 4 by the consulting firm Global Mind Consulting. Through two sessions focused on the objective state of play of the media in Africa as well as the solutions to contribute to their necessary strengthening.

From the outset, Constant Nemalé, founder of the television channel Africa 24, set the terms of the debate by calling for a move beyond linguistic borders. “We are the leader in French-speaking Africa. We have also developed Africa 24 in English and Arabic because it was a necessity,” says the media promoter who invites his colleagues to fully invest in the five international linguistic universes of the continent and the 3,000 linguistic fields of traditional Africa.

But, first, what is the legitimacy of dealing with the continent from Paris or London? For Marie-France Reveillard of La Tribune Afrique, doing journalism for Africa from Paris has advantages because all the “decision makers” pass through there. “That said, it is not enough to cover the continent’s news. You have to be on the ground,” says the reporter who spends at least two weeks a month traveling across Africa. And the reporter recalls this trivialized reality: “by being identified as a local journalist, it is more difficult to make contacts, we are relegated to the background. I saw that there was a differential treatment.

Seynabou Dia reminds Zyad Limam of Afrique Magazine, who reminds us of the African paradox, “a young continent with eternal promises”. How many of the 400 million French-speaking Africans have a bank card and are able to buy a subscription to satellite television”? And to criticize the often archaic media business models based on random advertising revenues and having to deal with political uncertainty.

In opposition to the Anglophone world pulled by the Nigerian locomotive and the Arabic-speaking world “driven” by Egypt and its 100 million inhabitants, the French-speaking world does not have a large pole capable of pulling the whole. The reality of the African advertising market is based on small advertisers from Dakar to Yaoundé, common problems, channels that work allowing the media to just exist. “But it will be necessary, insists Zyad Limam, to go further and look for opportunities on large ensembles” and to adopt new technologies. “The readers of the future have their noses glued to their smartphones or phones to consume TV and news on demand,” continues Zyad Limam calling for arrangements and alliances between African media.

An opinion of networking and necessary synergy shared by Mactar Silla, owner of the channel Label TV, 40 years of experience in African and international media. “In most of our countries, the media is not a priority. The sector evolves in a deregulated environment in competition with the formalized informal sector. And to be surprised by the fact that most of the holders of TV licenses are religious, political, in any case men foreign to the sector. It is necessary to have specifications for a quality content, says the former director of TV5 Afrique and Radio Télévision Sénégalaise.

For his part, Adama Wade, Director of Publication of Financial Afrik believes that the challenge of the African media is to allow Africa to make its point of view heard on the world and on Africa. “The image of Africa is shaped from the outside. There is necessarily an external prejudice that is difficult to correct. According to the journalist, the geographical position is no longer relevant since we are projected in two large virtual platforms, Google and Facebook, which together amass more than 92% of the global advertising market. Coming back to the continent, Adama Wade underlines that there is no regulated advertising market, neither in the Arab world, nor in the French-speaking one, even less in the English-speaking one. There is a major phenomenon that is taking place before our eyes, continues the journalist: “readers get their information through social networks on cell phones”. According to Bloomberg, this segment is growing by 30% per year.

This importance of social networks is further emphasized by Seynabou Dia, CEO of Global Mind, initiator of the talk. “168 million Africans are registered on Facebook, 31 million on Instagram and 24 million on Linkedin. So what is the strategy of African media to seize these new opportunities offered by digital, asks the boss of Global Mind by calling Constant Nemalé. “Any strategy is based on the sustainability of the media,” retorts the man who was also the founder of Telesud on the model of Youtube long before the American video sharing platform was really born. “The first thing for a media is to provide premium content.

Going back to his business model, Constant Nemalé says he ended up developing his own advertising network to fetch his clients. Is this a way of saying that the media should not leave the strategic relationship with the advertiser managed by a third party? Returning to synergies, Constant Nemalé says that alliances between African media are necessary and represent a future challenge.

Synergies are necessary

As for the African market, it is still trapped in a persistent mentality, continues the boss of Africa 24: “Africa’s public and private authorities spend an average of 30 million euros per year for their promotion abroad. Only 5% of this manna goes to African media. For Mactar Silla, there is a congenital complex, a masochism on the part of the public authorities and the African private sector who are stretching the whip to be beaten. Returning to the essential question of alliances, the boss of Label TV approves of their necessity between African media facing common challenges.

For Zyad Limam, media companies also need, beyond the challenges of the economic situation, to structure themselves financially and managerially and to transform readers into paying consumers. Marie Reveillard believes that “the media must be sufficiently capitalized to provide quality content.

Ultimately, the question of a resilient business model is very important in the African media space. “There are two things that need to be distinguished at this level, says Adama Wade: “There is the production of information according to the rules and canons of the profession, which never changes. Then there is the relationship between the reader and the client, as marketers call it, which is constantly reinvented. All the innovations we are witnessing with social networks and mobile telephony are taking place at this level of the relationship between the media and the reader. “We must adapt to the market and know that it is the market that regulates the evolution of consumption habits.

Need for Africa to tell its own story

In the second panel dedicated to the same topic, Alain Foka, journalist and producer of the famous program Archives d’afrique on RFI, said the challenge lies in the content. “We must have our narrative, tell our own story. And the Cameroonian columnist laments the mania “of the continent’s leaders to make important announcements in the external media. These leaders do not ask themselves that if they had devoted some means to their media, they will have quality products. And to call on journalists to invest themselves to meet the expectations of the African public that wants to see itself as it is. “Let’s make products to seduce Africans,” repeats Alain Foka, taking example of the wave of new TV series in Senegal or the cultural industry in Nigeria.

Taking the floor, Alioune Gueye, founder of the group Afrique Qui Ose and promoter of Africa Business Journal, said that at some point there must be “an African champion with newsrooms here and there so that the voice of the continent is heard. For the Senegalese promoter based in Casablanca, it is important that public and private decision makers understand the strategic importance of the media. “Today, there is a problem of sovereignty of information in Africa,” laments Mr. Gueye.

Another speaker who insisted on quality content, Malick Diawara of Point Afrique, believes that it is necessary to address Africans in what interests them, calling for the creation of value chains around the information seen as raw material. “Do our media take into account the African linguistic dimensions? Are we not only turned towards the urban world? “.

For his part, Marie Roger Biloa, CEO of Africa International Media Group, recalls that some channels have from the outset rushed on the political news with all the limitations induced. “There is a kind of glass ceiling when it comes to advertising resources in Africa,” continues the serial media entrepreneur. “We can’t send the press back to immediate profitability,” explains Marie Roger Biloa, recalling the public mission of the press. In the same way that France felt that its cinema had to exist alongside the American steamroller, it is quite plausible to reflect on the mechanisms that make the existence of major African media possible.

At the end of the day, the question that emerges from this great overview is the same: we need the right economic model. Alioune Gueye evokes a necessary “affirmative action” for the African media sector, a kind of “local content” that would give substance to Made In Africa. Whatever the economic model, as Malick Diawara nicely stated, ethics must not be the adjustment variable.

The pan-African agency Global Mind Talks thus signs the starting point of a new dynamic for the African media by creating a platform for collaboration and mutualization of the media in order to make emerge African champions of the media, the only way to appropriate the African narrative and make the voice of the Continent heard.

Source: Financial Afrik