The remarkable success of "Love in Every Word," which garnered a staggering one million views on YouTube within its first 24 hours and soared to five million within three days, underscores a significant shift within Nollywood, the world's second-largest film industry by volume. As global streaming giants have seemingly retreated from the Nigerian market due to profitability challenges, local creatives have increasingly turned to YouTube as a primary platform for distribution and audience engagement.
The Streaming Exodus
The move towards YouTube comes amidst a noticeable scaling back of operations by major international streaming services in Nigeria. In January 2024, Amazon Prime Video, the third-largest streaming platform in the country after Netflix and Showmax, made the significant decision to lay off its entire African workforce as part of a broader reduction in original content acquisitions. Netflix, too, has reportedly become more selective in its commissioning of original Nigerian productions.
Jessica Abaga, a former executive at Amazon Prime Studios who was involved in commissioning original content for Nigeria, offered a concise explanation for this trend: "Profitability is the very short answer. It almost feels like as far as the African market is concerned, the business model still isn’t working in their favour." This sentiment suggests that the unique dynamics of the Nigerian market, including pricing sensitivities and infrastructure limitations, pose significant hurdles for the traditional subscription-based models of these global players.
YouTube's Magnetic Pull
Several factors, beyond the challenges faced by streaming giants, have contributed to YouTube's burgeoning popularity among Nollywood filmmakers. One key element is the limited cinema infrastructure in West Africa. According to the 2024 Nigerian box office yearbook by Film One, a major distributor, Nigeria's estimated 200 million population is served by a mere 102 cinemas. Furthermore, the ongoing cost-of-living crisis has made cinema outings an unaffordable luxury for many, further impacting box office revenues.
Jessica Abaga noted that as cinema ticket prices increased, consumers began to realize that the same expenditure could fund a subscription to a streaming service – or provide access to free content on YouTube.
Another significant driver of the YouTube boom, according to industry observers, is the perceived tendency of streaming companies and traditional distributors to repeatedly collaborate with established, high-profile directors with a track record of strong viewership. This practice has inadvertently created a bottleneck, often sidelining emerging talent and limiting opportunities for fresh voices within the industry.
YouTube's open and accessible nature provides a stark contrast. "The biggest appeal YouTube has is the ease of putting your stuff there," Abaga explained. "Streamers are particular about production value, production quality, story quality, all-around storytelling integrity. On YouTube, nobody cares. It’s your prerogative as a producer … no red tape, no restrictions, nobody’s stifling your creativity. But that also means there’s no quality control per se."
Omoni Oboli, the director of "Love in Every Word," echoed this sentiment, stating, "The audience is left to reward us or punish us for our efforts based on what we choose to produce. Failure and success are solely dictated by market forces, whereby the audience (customers) are again king."
A Ruthless and Relentless Market
The result of this dynamic has been the emergence of a highly competitive and rapidly evolving market on YouTube, with a constant influx of new titles. Oboli herself operates two production units to meet her ambitious goal of releasing one movie per week. "Love in Every Word" is just one of over 60 films on a YouTube channel she launched only a year ago.
This rapid production cycle has led to some unconventional practices within the industry. Hundreds of actors have transitioned into directing roles. Scriptwriters may receive as little as 150,000 naira (£70) for feature-length scripts that are often shot in a mere four to five days. To minimize costs, some producers have adopted the strategy of renting an Airbnb for a week and filming multiple movies within that timeframe, with the primary change between productions being the actors' costumes. Promotional efforts often extend to cast and crew creating dance videos on TikTok to generate buzz around the films. The compressed post-production schedules sometimes result in unintentional glimpses of crew members appearing in the final movie frames.
The fast-paced nature of the YouTube landscape also presents challenges. In January, Oboli removed a film from her channel after discovering that her scriptwriter had allegedly sold the same script to another producer for a film released in 2022, highlighting issues of intellectual property within this burgeoning space.
The Quest for Quality and Sustainability
Despite the opportunities presented by YouTube, some filmmakers are striving to maintain higher production standards while still engaging with the platform's vast audience. Nora Awolowo, a 26-year-old filmmaker who has secured funding from angel investors for her debut feature film, "Red Circle," which is slated for theatrical release in Nigerian cinemas in June, expresses support for her colleagues on YouTube, recognizing the direct access to audiences and the platform's role in showcasing new talent. However, she acknowledges her own challenge: "is to reconnect to this audience by giving them quality."
One persistent issue that has plagued Nollywood and has not been eradicated by the shift to YouTube is the widespread problem of piracy. Bimbo Ademoye, an actor and producer, recently shared her frustration on Instagram after discovering her new movie on over 50 other YouTube channels, some even featuring the pirates' own watermarks and soundtracks. "Some had as much as 200k views … and it’s painful because we thought the days of piracy were over," she lamented.
Nora Awolowo also voices concerns about the long-term stability of the YouTube model, worrying that the platform could alter its entry criteria or payment structures, potentially leaving many filmmakers in a precarious position. She hopes that a more sustainable model will emerge to secure the future of the industry. "We have a structural problem," she argues. "Nobody wants to take risks. We are not addressing our problem in this industry, which is a distribution problem. How do we get to the grassroots? How do we engage the government? What are the policies?"
A Call for Revitalization
Chris Ihidero, a veteran of Nollywood with decades of experience, including directing the popular series "Fuji House of Commotion," believes that a potential solution lies in revitalizing the state-owned Nigerian Television Authority (NTA). Historically, the NTA served as a hub for original Nigerian programming, akin to the BBC in the UK and SABC in South Africa. However, since Nigeria's return to democracy in 1999, the NTA has increasingly become associated with state propaganda.
"There are no substitutes for investment in quality content on free-to-air platforms," Ihidero wrote in March. "This is the NTA’s statutory obligation and it has failed at it for decades."
His perspective suggests that a renewed focus on quality content production and distribution through a revamped national broadcaster could provide a more stable and potentially more financially viable alternative for Nollywood filmmakers, addressing some of the challenges and uncertainties inherent in the current YouTube-centric landscape.
