BBC to spend over N55bn on content development

Joel Churcher is the vice president/general manager Africa for BBC Worldwide. He spoke with Daniel Obi in Mauritius last week, at the MultiChoice Content Extravaganza forum for African journalists. Excerpts:

What is the objective of deepening your presence in Africa?

BBC is present in every continent and we have been in Africa for last 10-15 years, in terms of channel business. Our world news is one of popular news in Africa and 40 percent of all our traffic globally in BBC.com comes from Africa. When you check on who is looking at sports pages on BBC.com it is Nigeria. Africa is very important to us and we are looking at opening an office in Johannesburg to serve the whole of the continent. We were looking for a base and we chose Johannesburg and my responsibility will be to look for partnerships and to push up presence across Africa.

Can you let us into the investments so far in your African presence drive?

It is difficult to say because we are a global company and what I would say is that we are committed to developing our content, and we are investing 200 million pounds in developing our content in which all countries will benefit over the next three years. We are the premium content provider in the world and we are the biggest programme distributor in the world outside the US studios. We are not a channel business or news brand but we are a premium content company and we supply the best of British programme globally.

Can you discuss some of your contents, especially those that resonate with Africans?

We know what works in Africa, and our commitment is to deliver factual entertainment, natural history and to deliver premium drama. We know through having channels in Africa that our shows are top gear and natural history and we are doing local shows.

How do you navigate through the challenge of accessing information in Africa?

It is a tough one, but we got a partnership with MultiChoice and one thing we borrow from them is their expertise of the African continent. But that does not mean that we don’t know Africa, we have over 150 journalists based in Africa. Our news brand is trusted globally and ultimately it is an entity in itself. BBC world news is trusted and it is BBC brand and we like to keep it as an entity.

When you report Africa, do you really divorce yourself from Europe sentiment and report what is on ground?

I would defend that, and why BBC invests in local journalists is to get African voices in Africa reporting African subjects.

Between foreign and local journalist, who tells the story better?

They have different perspectives, and that is something good about news. BBC has local journalists and they report on local news in Africa for Africa.

From your experience in Africa, do you see poor remuneration of journalists affecting the profession?

Remuneration issue is not an African problem. People get into professions based on passion.

Why are you here in Mauritius?

For us, it is important to speak to Africa in one place. I know that for a lot of journalists here, they have not been exposed to BBC events. It is an opportunity to remind Africans that we are premium content company, which has great channels. Incredibly, we have a successful brand and we have over 280 million viewers globally. We are not just a TV station, we produce content and we sell our format and Nigeria has our format.