AS the Thema Pay TV channels in France have shown, there's a huge appetite for news from "back home" amongst those living in the global African diaspora. Kenya's Habari TV hopes to capitalise on this interest by providing streamed news programmes from key African broadcasters. Russell Southwood of Balancing Act spoke to Habari TV's Kelvin Karungu about its plans.
Habari TV's ambition is to be the web site where news programmes from TV stations all over Africa are aggregated under the slogan "News like Home". It wants to be able to offer these news programmes within 24 hours of transmission, either at full length or as news clips. It also aims to carry news output in local languages. So for example, in Kenya, the objective would be to carry news output from the main five channels.
It's working on getting the news programmes on to its servers within one hour of transmission. For broadcasters working digitally, this is fairly easy as it can be sent over the Internet and then formatted for presentation on the Habari TV site. It will index and tag clips and date stamp them, enabling users to use key words for searching.
The pitch to local broadcasters is that rather than buy rights from them, Habari TV will do a revenue share with the broadcaster. Kelvin Karungu won't give specific numbers but says:"We have created a formula for the percentage revenue split based on ratings and viewership. The more views, the more money you get." Whilst some broadcasters like Nation TV and KTN already have clips on their website, Habari TV's service to TV stations is ideal for those who may not yet have a developed online offer.
The costs of having enough bandwidth for streaming programmes are not trivial and Habari TV offers a cost-effective way into the market. As Kelvin Karungu, Habari TV told us:"It's an untapped market for broadcasters. It's ideal for those who like the idea of doing it but don't know how to do it."
The business model is based on offering a subscription service. After a three day free trial, users pay US$19.99 for the news content carried by the website. There are significant discounts if you sign up for a quarterly or annual subscription. Registration is a very simple process and the web site is clear and easy to use. All content is streamed and requires a minimum down link of 256 kbps. The service is hosted in Canada. And as Karungu notes:"It's easier to watch locally using 3G."
Click here to read the full story, posted on allafrica.com.
