Chidiebere Nwobodo writes that GloTV is set to revolutionise the entertainment industry
When American telecom giant, AT&T, concluded a deal to combine its content unit—WarnerMedia, with Discovery, to herald emergence of Hollywood’s biggest studio, with the sole aim to strategically position the conglomerate to compete with content behemoths like Netflix and Disney, it sent a subtle message to the world of entertainment that creative content was the new gold mines—next frontier, in need of explorers.
Netflix, Disney+, WarnerMedia, Amazon Prime, etc., have kept increasing their annual budgets on content developments, exploration and dissemination, just to remain on top of the entertainment market by growing their subscribers’ bases. With a global subscriber base of 208 million, Netflix budgeted $17 billion to be expended on content in 2021 alone.
Joint estimated content expenditure of WarnerMedia’s HBO and HBO Max and Discovery+ in the last one year stood at $20 billion. With a combined subscribers base of 64 million and 15 million, respectively, its merger has strengthened it to compete favourably with the likes of Netflix—208 subscribers and Disney+—103 million viewers. This is the scramble for the control of entertainment contents industry; the streaming market.
Globacom, a leading telecommunications operator renowned for disrupting the market positively for the interest of consumers, is set to repeat this feat in online TV services. Its investments in entertainment industry is a proof of its passion for the youth-driven ecosystem. It is like coming to play a bigger role in a familiar terrain. Glo, the first indigenous mobile operator that is credited to have quickened GSM deployment across the country, with its attendant opportunities and ease of doing business.
Globacom’s determination to put mobile phones in the hands of every willing Nigerian, crashed the price of SIM card. Its magic wand—per second billing (PSB), became the game changer and the last straw that broke the back of duopoly hitherto created by legacy operators, who held the belief that per second billing was impossible. Globacom proved them wrong. In retrospect, no one should write history of the nation’s telecom sojourn without giving Glo prestigious position in the hall of fame.
Recently, Globacom celebrated its 18th anniversary. One of the highlights of the anniversary, was the launch of its new app called GloTV. It is an innovative TV streaming service on Android, IOS apps and web for watching live linear TV, Video on Demand and catch-up with premium content. GloTV is set to redefine television landscape in the country, as it will beam quality contents to mobile phones, laptops and desktops of millions of subscribers in Nigeria and beyond.
Most of premium and entertaining contents that GloTV will be offering are what many Nigerians pay through the nose to access via satellite television. Satellite TV services are still under near monopolistic hold of one company. Some Nigerians have consistently called for satellite television services to be paid for using “pay as you go” model, but the monopolistic tendency in the sector usually come up with the flimsy excuses that it is not possible, while similar option is obtainable in their parent country.
Nigerians are made to pay for satellite TV view times they do not use because of an exploitative model being used by dominant company. Before now, there were no better alternatives. If not that Globacom took up the challenge to make life easier for us, we might still be making calls at per minute billing – a humongous ripe off. Globacom via GloTV, is about to do what it knows how to do best—breaking monopoly cum duopoly, just to offer Nigerians quality services at cheaper and affordable rates.
History is repeating itself again. Incidentally the two biggest streaming service providers in Nigeria today are Netflix and Showmax—two foreign companies. As at last available information, Netflix was valued at $194 billion. In fact, Covid-19 pandemic helped to skyrocket its shares. While Nigerians are busy fighting each other over sharing of “national cake” that we don’t even bake, foreign companies are exploring our multi-billion dollars new frontier of content streaming market.
Like it did in GSM services, Globacom is ready to bring enormous competition that will benefit Nigerians in this new frontier. GloTV will revolutionize online streaming industry in the country. It has vast network infrastructure of data and voice services that will guarantee quality internet and creative contents. The construction of intercontinental submarine fiber optics called Glo1 is proving a great cum visionary investment in lieu of newly launched GloTV and continuous growth of number of consumers on its network.
When other major operators are losing hundreds of thousands of subscribers, Globacom added a whopping number of one million subscribers in the month of July, 2021, according to data released recently by the industry watchdog, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC). It is a show of strength in its growing share of the market. The launch of GloTV will further balloon its number of subscribers because more Nigerians will migrate to the network in order to be part of online streaming frontier GloTV has birthed.
According to the telecommunications giant, “GloTV brings engaging, interactive and premium entertainment content through a rich bouquet of offerings including hundreds of live entertainment programmes, music, documentaries, news, original shows, fashion, lifestyle, kiddies’ interest channels and over 1,000 videos as the company continues to partner providers to address the needs of more customers across varying social strata”.
As a telecommunications operator renowned as grandmaster of data, powered by 4G network anchored on Glo I supersonic submarine optics fiber infrastructure, users of GloTV will find the app interesting as it offers a wide variety of choices from entertainment to news, information to sports, education to cartoons.
The app is for customers on its pre-paid and post-paid platforms who own compliant android and iPhone devices and will be required to visit myglotv.com to register and download the GloTV app free of charge until September 30th, 2021. GloTV has ushered Nigerians into a new frontier vis-a-vis world of contents. Lovers of entertainment are beckoned upon to embark on this voyage using GloTV.
