Summit Highlights Funding Gap in Media Enterprises

Labake Fasogbon

The need to simplify funding access for media entrepreneurs to improve their output and ensure industry sustainability has been reiterated at a Media Roundtable Summit convened by Blanche Aigle Communications in Lagos, recently. 

Media executives, experts and investors who gathered for the summit tabled out sector’s challenges and likely pathway under the theme, ‘Africa’s Media Renaissance: Building a Thriving Industry at the Intersection of Storytelling, Business, and Technology’.

Organisers of the summit explained its timeliness to address growing demand for content innovation and sustainable growth. 

Specifically, Founder of Blanche Aigle Communications, Nene Bejide, urged a need for stakeholders to be prepared for a boom in the sector with local digital ad spendings projected to exceed $400 million by 2025.

She posited that Africa’s vibrant creator economy remained untapped, hence requiring bold investment, regulatory reform, digital transformation and collaborative leadership to unlock the sector’s opportunity. 

“It is important that Africa’s media professionals, brand leaders, investors, and policymakers invest, innovate, and collaboratively influence a new narrative. This is to also reiterate that players should not just be visible, but valued.

“The summit served as a strategic platform to exchange bold ideas and collectively shape the future of the African creator economy,” she stated. 

Founder of Soho Consulting International, James Hewes, in a keynote address themed, ‘The Future of Media’, charged operators on output that will position them at the forefront of global platform economies.

To scale, he maintained that embracing disruption remains a must, citing how artificial intelligence, data, and global narratives are rapidly converging to shape the format of storytelling and distribution across Africa and beyond.

The event featured an insightful panel session involving key stakeholders drawn across the media pool. 

Panelists, including Communications Consultant, Tolu Ogunlesi; Marketing Director, GBfoodsAfricaOreoluwaAtinmo; Head, Business and Legal, Chocolate City, Ifeyinwa Anyadiegwu, Group Head Brand Transformation and Digital Banking,Bank of Industry, Jide Sipe and Founder, Nairametrics, Ugodre Obi-Chukwu, amongst others, extensively deliberated on issues bearing on the sector. 

Their conversations covered diverse issues bothering on varying themes, including ‘Building a Global Audience: Strategies for African Media Companies’, ‘Public Relations in the Digital Era – Managing Reputations and Building Influence’, ‘The Music Business and Entertainment Ecosystem – Leveraging Media for Global Growth’ and ‘Funding and Investment in Africa’s Creative Industry’.

“This year’s theme is not just aspirational, it’s urgent. We are living through a defining moment for African storytelling, where our platforms, people, and policies must align. This summit is our commitment to building an inclusive, youth-driven, and economically viable media ecosystem that speaks with power and purpose, “Bejide remarked.