By Sylvain Baletre
Published March 22, 2013
Buni TV, a leading video-on-demand (VoD) platform for African content has launched a premium subscription service called Buni+ on March 3, 2014.
For US$5 per month, subscribers to Buni+ will access a range of African movies such as Kenya’s NAIROBI HALF LIFE or South Africa’s JERUSALEMA: GANGSTER PARADISE, and television drama such as South Africa’s THE MATING GAME. Children and their parents, too, will love JUNGLE BEAT, an animated show.
Fans of XYZ, a political satire programme featuring life-size latex puppets produced in Nairobi by Buni Media, a multi-media company that also owns the Buni TV VoD service, will also access new Season 9 episodes (premiered on March 8, 2014) on Buni+ a day before they air on television. After a week these episodes will become available to all users for free, according to Marie Lora-Mungai, CEO of Buni TV.
Buni+ promises subscribers a wide range of movies, short films, TV shows and documentaries, and we also have several major TV deals in the pipeline.
“The films, documentaries, television series, animations and music videos showcased on Buni TV are hand-picked by Buni’s editors from the sea of content that is available digitally to offer viewers only what is worth their time,†says Lora-Mungai. “Buni TV shares all revenue with content owners such as producers and filmmakers on a 50/50 basis. Buni TV enables advertisers to associate brands with targeted, highly engaged audiences.”
Marie Lora-Mungai confirmed that the company holds a catalogue of about 200 high quality titles, and close to 1000 titles through its partnership with AfricaFilms.tv.
Payment is secured and easy. There are no strings attached and hidden costs. Viewers interested in subscribing can pay via M-Pesa and other mobile money services, credit card, or Paypal, and can cancel the service at any time.
“Kenya (40 M), Nigeria (170 M), South Africa (49 M) and the African Diaspora (about 200 M) are our key market focus for making Buni+ a success,†Marie Lora-Mungai adds.
Building on the momentum of a strong market demand for Africa’s audiovisual media content, Buni TV says it is getting close to a million unique visitors and that it has generated millions of views since its launch.
The company and its VoD partner, AfricaFilms.tv, have just received a 500 000 Euro grant from the European Union’s ACP Culture Plus programme. Both organisations are therefore bound to remain ethical and culturally-driven in programming.
Based on the experience and the partnership between two African digital distribution platforms (bunitv.com and africafilmstv.com), this project will create a powerful digital audio-visual distribution tool to enable fair, transparent and safe management of rights and royalties for ACP content owners. The project also aims at bringing together the catalogues of works and the audiences of Francophone and Anglophone African countries in order to create a global-public dimension,†is how the ACP Culture Plus describes the project funded by EU.
Marie Lora-Mungai says Buni+ service is being promoted through TV commercials to be aired on Kenya’s NTV and through YouTube, Google and Facebook ads.
“The launch of Buni+ is a big milestone on which our team has been working hard for a while, so we’re very excited,” says Lora-Mungai.
This article by Balancing Act has been re-edited.
