A Critical Shortage of Locally-Owned African TV Content

I'm currently deep in the work of mapping television — broadcast, satellite, streaming, commissioning data — across African markets, driven in part by related questions from subscribers and non-subscribers alike following the news of Canal+'s Showmax shutdown, now confirmed for the end of April. It's also speeding up work that was already underway, which recent Akoroko Premium reports have shown.

In 2022, the year American television finally hit what the industry had been calling peak TV, the United States produced 600 original scripted series — broadcast, cable, premium, streaming. That number doesn't account for the decades-long library of American television. It just means that in that one year, 600 new series were available to American viewers, layered on top of everything already in circulation. I live in the United States. I know what this feels like from the inside. It's too much. I can't keep up and neither can everyone I know. We make choices from an abundance that is simply the baseline condition of watching television here. There is always something new. There is always something for you.