Online Streaming: A Paradigm Shift for Nollywood Movie Distribution
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Date
2024
Authors
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Journal ISSN
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Department of Communication Studies, Faculty of Arts, College of Humanities and Legal Studies, University of Cape Coast,Ghana
Abstract
The Nigerian movie distribution and exhibition business has undergone
major transformation in the last few years due to technological innovation.
The study is about Nollywood paradigm shift from hard copy movie
distribution to online streaming services. The aim is to ascertain why
producers are moving to soft screening through online pay-to-view
platforms. The objectives were to find out if this new trend is financially
beneficial to the producers and whether it will likely continue in the
future. The study adopted qualitative methods to interrogate existing data
on some of the most popular Nollywood films released online by Netflix.
This is based on a snap-shotofNetflix’spopularitychartinthemonthof
October, 2020 and news of cinema theatre films release around the same
period. The findings are that the online distribution deals must have been
profitable for the producers, judging by repeated use by some of them and
others enlisting in the business. The expanding scope of Nollywood
producers using these online streaming platforms for distributions of their
work suggests the likelihood of a continuing process. The study concludes
that this is a mutually beneficial relationship between local producers and
online business global entities. It, therefore, recommends that Nollywood
producers avoid signing exclusive deals with online distributors only.
This will allow home-grown cinema theatres to be financially rewarding
to prevent the nation’s cinema theatre chains from collapsing due to
redundancy.