“They Put A Lot Of Money Into Our Industry And They’re Not Getting That Return On That Investment”-.AY Shares Reason Why Netflix Plans Exit

The talk about Netflix leaving Nigeria has been the talk of the week,.

Now, during a new interview with TVC, AY is also talking about what a Netflix exit would mean, and opens up about the reasons why such a decision would be detrimental, also exposing the realities of cinema earnings from Nigeria in the process. Here’s what AY had to say about the whole thing.

Speaking about the rumors of Netflix leaving Nigeria and why it would be terrible for filmmakers, especially with the breakdown of how much filmmakers really take home from cinemas, AY said:

AY: Well they’re already saying all of that is a rumor and we want to believe it to be a rumor. And one of the reasons why I would believe that is because not too long ago, they [Netflix] had like a zoom meeting with me. So I was wondering where is this news coming from.

What they are saying is that they can’t get involved like they used to get involved because they put a lot of money into our industry and they’re not getting that return on that investment. That return on investment is not there so it’s like, let’s take a break, let’s go and re-strategize and know if we can’t be doing originals, you know, we can be licensing. So that’s the conversation going on, but of course you know our people will just take it overboard and say okay they don run o! But they haven’t left.

And as a matter of fact, it’s not just limited to our industry only. It’s concerning all of us as Nigerians, what are we doing with the platform? For example, you subscribe to Netflix and you’re going to give that same password to somebody else. So, you don’t see the numbers coming back in and so when all of these conversations and occurrences goes on, it affects the business itself. So let’s give them time to re-strategize.

But how does it affect us? I will say that it’s going to be a big blow because the kind of money we put on the project that we do, we don’t usually get it back from the cinemas. Because we don’t have enough cinemas. And of course even if you see all that billions and everything that come, by the time they do that sharing ratio for the cinema owners, the distributors, what have you, you will be shocked that even FIRS and the people that are coming for us, if they know how much wey remain [laughs]. But then when they want to come for us, they come with that number in focus: “Wow, AY must have made 1 billion, let’s go for him,” I say look at, look at it on the table. This is it.

Source: Jide Okonjo

Email: elora.akpotosevbe@yahoo.com