Vivendi's Canal+ acquires African film studio ROK

By Angela Ukomadu
LAGOS, July 15 (Reuters) - French pay-TV group Canal+ has
acquired African film and television studio ROK, marking the
first international acquisition in Nigeria's film industry,
popularly known as Nollywood.
Lagos-based ROK, which announced the deal on Monday, owns a
large library of films and animation series in Nigeria and
produces movies and TV series for distribution platforms.
Nollywood is one of the world's biggest film production hubs
and Canal+, owned by Vivendi VIV.PA , aims to expand in Africa
as stiff competition from streaming services such as Netflix
NFLX.O and Amazon AMZN.O. has caused the group to lose
subscribers in France.
With more Africans buying TVs - and streaming services not
widely accessible due to relatively high data costs - the
continent is fertile ground for satellite pay-TV companies to
provide original content and generate customer loyalty.
"ROK will produce thousands more hours of Nollywood content
to deliver movies and original TV series for Canal+ Group's
audiences," ROK said in a statement. It did not say how much
Canal+ had paid for the company.
Under the deal, Canal+ acquired ROK's production, content
distribution and publishing channels, from IROKO Ltd, Africa's
digital content distributor for Nigerian films. ROK founder Mary
Njoku will continue as general director of ROK Productions.
ROK will produce Nollywood content for Canal+ group's
French-speaking African audience, to be distributed via IROKO's
subscription video on demand app.
Last year, Vivendi said that Canal+ aimed to add 1.5 million
African subscribers by 2020 to bring the total to about 5
million, up from 1 million five years ago.
Rights to European and African soccer have long been a draw
in Africa and Canal+ has invested heavily in locally produced
content.
IROKO incubated ROK in 2013 and has produced over 540 films
and 25 original TV series in Africa. It said ROK reaches 15
million subscribers on satellite TV services on the continent.

(Writing by Chijioke Ohuocha;
Editing by Alexis Akwagyiram and Susan Fenton)