Before the Price Waterhouse Coopers report titled Entertainment and Media Outlook (2015-2019) was released in September last year, a local projection released to Beellan TV by the Music Copyright Society of Kenya had placed Kenya’s entertainment worth at Sh200 billion.
This wasn’t far from the latest outcome. Indeed, the talk about numbers is a non-issue. The truth is that the local entertainment has steadily risen to affirm its position as one of the greatest earners and employers as well in the Kenyan economy.
What is even more exciting is that beside the conventional entertainment outlets such as TV, radio, film and music recording in general, new media players among them YouTube and everything social media has thrown in a whole new twist in the entertainment game; and so, a future that very few, if any, saw coming is here with us.
According to the PriceWaterhouseCoopers report, the local entertainment industry made more than Sh189 billion in revenue. Now, this is expected to rise to Sh347 billion by 2019.
The report that accounts for data collected from Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria cuts across a number of sectors in the entertainment industry among them Internet-based forums, television, filmed entertainment, radio, recorded music, publishing, out-of-home advertising, video games and sports, had a favourable leaning on internet, filmed entertainment and video games – all of which were projected as growing new frontiers.
The Internet is taking charge of the entertainment space. Literally, everything entertainment; from video access, gaming, selling of music can now be done with the click of a button. That is where the new money is. They call it over-the-top streaming revenue.
With much of the new support coming from the Internet and for that matter increased use of social media, PwC had it that the entertainment and media industry earned Sh150 billion with a projection of Sh88 billion expected from TV and radio alone in the next four years now.
