With the Federal Government making two hundred million dollar ($200m) intervention funds available for entertainment industry in Nigeria, Managing Director of Hi Media (owners of HiTV cable), Mr. Toyin Subair has advised that for the fund to make meaningful impact, it must be geared towards building infrastructures for the industryBANKS unwillingness to lend to entertainment industryEverywhere in the world, initiatives in the industries are taken up by venture capitalists or through private equity. In a country where the interest rates rove between 18 and 22 percent, how many new businesses can start off on 180 days circle without the businesses dying midway because they are funded wrongly When 80 percent of the money needed to fund the business is debt and only 20 percent is equity, you kill the business; it should be the other way round.Today, many of us set up businesses because our uncles, our friends will put some money in it, since there is no institution that will invest in the business and give it a bit of equity.Looking at it strictly from the banks perspective, we go to them to use debt to fund what we should ordinarily use equity to do. So you put them in the driving seat. Thus they are giving you debt at huge fees on short term, when the business really needs long term equity. What do they do when they give you that money They know that you are not going to last; they take the money from your account and they now leave you to begin working for them with huge debt and this kills businesses. And once you are paying the debt, the investment to grow the business you should use the money for, you will not be able to do that. You will not be able to enter a growth stage anymore; you enter a repayment stage, when you should invest in things that are growth in nature.If we are in an industry where the only people you can attract are the artistes, who have no managerial, financial, legal and marketing expertise and you have to face a banking industry that is still razor type sharp, and you fall into the hands of those that give you money like money lenders (and for money lenders, it is short term), they want their money back and you cannot do anything with it. And you begin to reduce element of investment, which is the real productivity; instead you are using it to repay debt.The intervening fund from the Federal GovernmentI do not know anything about it and I hope they do not give it to people to do film or album. Rather, 80 percent should be directed into infrastructure and businesses that are based on infrastructure. The good thing about equity is that when you put in money, you can determine management as opposed to debt. With equity, you can say you must get a Chief Financial Officer, Chief Marketing Officer, and some other officers. Therefore, you are insisting on a level of management.So the money must be intelligently used for businesses to avoid people taking it to buy houses, cars or build houses.The money should be for developing infrastructure in the different sectors of the entertainment industry. From those that do stage prop, lighting, everything to stage a film properly. You give them so that when they start doing shows, those shots will look cool and people want to watch and pay for it. You want to invest in companies that are really doing that and need that kind of infrastructure. Nigerian film industry today, if they release a film, we have just about ten cinemas. In India, they have 2,500. If an India film comes out today, it is showed on cinemas, and piracy cannot disturbe it. A film is supposed to go to cinema first before video, then television.Ordinarily, Nigeria should have a minimum of 500 cinemas, proper, multiplexing cinemas, where you have two-case cinemas, restaurants and shops. We need that kind of infrastructure. Imagine the Mammoud Ali Balogun film or Dagrin film that just came out. I saw the amount of people that came out of the cinema hall. You can envisage if those films were showed in 100 cinemas over the weekend. Maybe 20 around Lagos, 10 in Port-Harcourt, five in Enugu, three in Ilorin, five in Ibadan and Oyo area, and people go out in these areas to watch these films. You should begin to calculate how much money will come back on the first week for Dagrin movie.Cinema cultureCinema is for people to go out to have fun; it is not elitist. Let us trace it. What is the cinema culture The cinema culture is going somewhere to watch film either with friend or family to have fun for the day. The number one thing is; do people go out to have fun in Nigeria And if you are going to build cinemas, it is a different issue. But, do we have enough people in this country that will go out to have fun. Look at all the chicken companies that have come up in the last ten years. Check; is it really hunger that make people go to Tantalizers, Tasty Fried ChickenTo majority of the people, these places are entertainment destinations. People take their girlfriends there; people take their children there after church; that is why they strive. In some rural areas of the country, if you set up a Mr. Biggs, you will be amazed by the people that will patronise it. Okada riders park their bikes outside, sit inside with their girlfriends to have fun. So. it is not true that we do not have the culture.Cinema versus home videoCinema in Nigeria ran into problem during the indigenization period in 1976. Before then, a lot of big towns were doing cinema. This was before the home video started. When home video started, which cinema was operating in Nigeria Thus home video had no link with it. It was dead long before home video came in. It was no longer in existence. Indeed, cinemas before in Nigeria were not for Nigerian movies.In fact, the Nigeria movie industry has never had the opportunity to express itself through cinema because of lack of infrastructure. What should we be spending money on It is the building of cinemas, in making sure that the properties are well equipped, and you either produced it in digital format or 33mm; those are the things they need to look into and invest in critical institutions and companies, production companies, and things like that.There must be strategic thinking. People go to watch football in viewing centres now; that is still cinema, it is the same culture. Today, many big viewing centres show films; it is just that when there is football, they show football. But every other time, they have films. So it is not that the culture is not there, but it is not organised.So unless those things are put in place and done, the funding that comes from those movies is not going to happen. At present, those who are in charge of those movies are getting the money in small pieces, without a guarantee that they can get a full return back. But once you have cinemas, distribution companies, then things will start to take shape.To be frank, what do you expect the producers to have done before now without infrastructure Have you ever seen a detailed analysis of how many films are sold And you know that we like giving figures; people like giving figures but attach numbers, reports and feedbacks of those figures, and you get zero. At the end of the day when they go to the bank, the banks that are going to loan them money are going to ask for a house. So, they are not lending money for business, they are just money lenders and they know that the business will not bring the money back and they know that they are going to sell the house; it is the standard.But if somebody had thought about it properly, they would have known that except some things are in place that money will never come back, so they give them the money. The bank put in money without thinking through the whole system. The producers collected the money, but they also were not planning to do this thing for the next thirty years of their life, if not, they would have set up a plan.Banks investment in filmWho did they give it to, the producers who produced these films themselves Should they be the one taking the money and investing the money Somebody who is an expert would have tied up how he is going to get that money back, not these people who have become jack of all trades and master of none. They are producers, distributors, marketers; in fact, some of them even act in the movies and write the scripts. So in that situation, what do you expect to happenOne of the things I do tell people is this, if HiTV stops selling in Nigeria totally, and we continue to create the channels we are creating, the next three years, we continue what we are doing outside Nigeria, the amount of money we would be making as a company would be huge because the business outside Nigeria is so huge for Nigeria music, films and productions. We are the first African channel that will be measured in the UK by an approved audience rating agency, and as I am talking today, we have 280,000 homes that are watching HiTV alone and that same broadcast is being showed up in Russia. And we have not done the amount of things we should do. And by the time we add some live shows and all kinds of programmes from Nigeria, we would expand it and I am sure that by the time we are entering the beginning of next year, we would have 700,000 homes guaranteed that will be watching us in the UK and that is money based on advertising and in terms of content and use.For instance, an AY comes to us that he wants to do a show in the UK and we advertise it for him completely. The show is sold out, and on the day of the show, people buy tickets for 100 pounds, that is twenty five thousand naira to watch the show and there are more people outside than inside. He makes his own money, ticket man makes his own money, it brings more money for us and we do that for how many comedians and film artistes in the UK today. And if the channel was not there, marketing becomes more difficult; those shows are more difficult to see. The channel is more successful because it has more idea concept even from local brand, marketed and put together properly, it insists on quality of production, then that means more shows. The next time, we will not just be doing one show; by the time we are finished with all of these guys, when next they want to go to the UK, they want to do 18 shows and tours. And the amount of money they will be making now, it will not just be the small money from one show. So you can see the multiplier effect if we get it right locally.Making Nigerian entertainment a global brandThe number one thing is that we must stop being short-term minded, because nothing works like that. There is need for professionals to come in, then funding. If you notice what I said about equity and debt, with equity, you can dictate management. Do you know why I can say that After five years of running my business, I found out that the biggest problem in Nigeria is not lack of money, it is lack of people who will do the work and do it well.In any business, you must have people who are well trained and committed to that work. No matter the money they put in that business, the money will be short-lived without the right people and management and that is why I keep on talking about this management issue and attracting the right professionals so that the right money can come in. It must not be short-term. Short-term money and short-term people will kill everything and that is what we are having. It will not grow; you need long-term management individuals and long-term finances.We also need regulations that will protect the industry. If you do not create regulation that will protect the industry, you have a local industry that you are exposing to damage, total damage. The World Trade Organisation Agreement allows every country to make laws to protect the growth of its own local media, entertainment and intellectual property industry.The world recognises that you do not just allow foreigners to come into your country and destroy the creativity of your people. So where they say there is free trade market, there are exceptions to free market.In South Africa, you cannot own a legal company as a foreigner and have more than 20 percent. And we do not analyse these issues; why do we keep quiet about it in Nigeria.If not for what we have done, look at the amount of investment that had come into the industry because we came in and are doing what we are doing. There is need of investment and growth of this industry.The role of Hi MediaNow, what is our problem Our problem is that, like I have said, there are three forms. If we address the problem of distribution, you set up cinemas, you have video and you have television. And television is into two: you have Pay TV, and there is free to air. In the Pay TV, we have created that window so Nigerian movies have a platform in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Europe and America and we are distributing on that platform. So in that segment of the market, we are already dealing with it.But the cinema belt must the sorted out; the video belt and even the free to air must be sorted out. That is for movie. The real issue is for production, which we are starting with our new studio and the Tinapa project. And what was the reason for our investment in Tinapa We need to improve the quality of local production.
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