KweseTV, is the new kid on the block. It promises to redefine television in ways Africa has never experienced it. Owned and managed by the maverick African entrepreneur, Strive Masiyiwa, KweseTV has all it needs for unprecedented future success.
In Uganda, Kwese entered the market with a statement. It bought WBS which had been placed on receivership thanks to tax compliance challenges and other unpaid liabilities the television was struggling with. Great entrepreneurs are always scanning for new opportunities and the next big thing. TV is one of such industries that has been hard to penetrate due to some barriers to entry pertaining to broadcasting rights for popular sports and shows. Kwese has a solution to that.
A lot of innovations and new initiatives are taking place at Kwese. Even the mighty DStv is waking up to a new reality of a formidable challenger. Already Kwese promises to offer live broadcast of all popular sports channels especially popular Football matches of all leagues, Golf and Marathons, among others. Kwese also promises to tell the African story in black and white. Of course, Kwese TV will have color pictures. But it is investing in infrastructure to enable locals tell the local stories accurately. This local content focus and highlighting motivational African entrepreneur stories will be at the center of Kwese’s broadcasting Agenda.
Is KweseTV going into unoccupied market space? May be not. What is the ‘strategic foundation’ of KweseTV? Strong founder networks and the power of supporting infrastructure thanks to capabilities already present within the group. It is great to start. But is far easier to start when you have a big brother in the group ready to give a hand — including leveraging from existing multi-media capabilities, lots of skill set within the group, goodwill and capital advantages (banks give low cost loan to those who ‘don’t’ appear not to need the loan) to become unstoppable, even when business is a hard one to join.
A lot of innovations and new initiatives are taking place at Kwese. Even the mighty DStv is waking up to a new reality of a formidable challenger. Already Kwese promises to offer live broadcast of all popular sports channels especially popular Football matches of all leagues, Golf and Marathons, among others
True, TV needs reinvention. Here are the new ways to redefine television and make an impact to mankind:
(i) When one tunes to a specific channel, you get to know how many other people have tuned in at that time; (ii) Don’t sell Dishes, leverage on existing ones esp telecom masts to transmit TV signals with or without permission by leveraging power of near field or wireless; (iii) Enable/ disable live streaming from mobile reporters and allow popular ones to run own mini-channel on your TV platform; (iv) Make cable TV interactive! Of course TV is not yet able to allow one watching to enter into it and read news.
I hope KweseTV can be a game changer in these and more areas. Otherwise, just doing what others are doing is great to make money from ads, further tell our stories but may be just that – – an average TV that will soon fall to a new comer.
