Piracy: Nollywood Can Generate $250m Through TV – NBC Boss

The director-general of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), Emeka Mba, has said the lack of distribution system in Nollywood encouraged piracy.

Piracy, a trend which has remained a burden to the Nigerian movie industry, popularly called Nollywood has continued to rob the industry of millions.

If it is able to control piracy, Mba said Nollywood could achieve over $250 million per annum through television.

“We have the Nollywood which is the third largest film industry in the world despite its challenges with piracy. When I worked with the Censors Board, I said to people, piracy is there because there is no distribution system.

“Once you create structured distribution system, you are better able to monetize content even though there will still be piracy with this, get to 30 million homes with the encryption at the back end of this, with the subscriber management system at the back end of this and with a free to air television bases, you can achieve over $250m per annum to Nollywood through television.

“If you fight in the first year, you can achieve this because if Kunle Afolayan can simply put out his programme and tell people, 30 million households, let's assume that 1 percent of that 30 million buys his movie the first day, that tractable revenue that he can feel, see, touch, so we believe, again as I said, it is about innovation,” he said.