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It was yet another full, though somewhat vexing week on my end, contemplative, thinking deeply about where we are in the evolution of African film, television, and digital media activity across the continent. I think my Q1 2026 thoughts captured my state of mind succinctly. I'm less cranky today, though not because anything has materially changed. Time passes, life goes on. Still playing with fire and ice as we set up African Screen Intelligence, ASI, our flagship product, for early selective beta testing. The best analogy I can make here is editing the 20,000-word master draft you spent months or even years piecing together in order to produce a 1,500-word final copy. It's at once the easiest part of the process, particularly if the master draft is strong, while also being tedious and time-consuming. I'm certainly much closer to a deliverable version than I was a week ago. Also in development in the lab is AFP, African Film Press, Dispatch, a curated news delivery tool. What we're referring to fondly as Deadline Africa because it serves as an immediate, easy reference point. The challenge is how to deliver near real-time relevant news that captures film, television, and digital media activity across 54 countries. The streaming and infrastructure tracker is one piece of it and will remain separate for now. The plan is to keep month-to-month updates consistent until it becomes more of a utility. The other challenge is where to deliver the news. Like me, I'm sure your email inbox is constantly filling up with new messages. At the moment, much of our straight news coverage sits on African Film Press channels. But one goal yet to be met is ensuring that Akoroko Premium subscribers receive at least the headlines as part of their subscription. I hope AFP Dispatch, which will be available across multiple streams, helps solve that issue. More testing, fine-tuning, and repetition are planned for the week ahead. As always, thanks for being here. Return to the email for links to all the reports dispatched over the past seven days.
