The rise of mobile streaming TV

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MobiMedia, the mobile content arm of the Ole! Media Group launched Jika TV in August 2017. The platform provides digital content producers with a hub and home for locally created content that can now reach a global audience.  Jika TV has numerous channels that satisfy consumers’ information and edutainment needs – with close to 1 million subscribers.

The growth of the ‘platform’, is driven by a variety of content, covering topics such as sports news and round-ups, health and fitness, food, inspirational and religious content, children’s content with Cartoon Network, and more. There is also a wide range of educational content ranging from learning channels for pre- and primary-schoolers through to Life Skills for adults.

Furthermore, given the local focus, the language bandwidth includes isiZulu, isiXhosa, Swahili, French and Portuguese. Many of the channels are animation and expression driven rather than language audio or language dependent, and are thus accessible to multilingual audiences.

The content is carried on a number of well-established mobile operator platforms with more joining, including expansion into Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Europe through the likes of API integrations with Airtel, BBM, MTN, Vodacom and others.

“The uptake in the service by operators and consumers has been tremendous, as has the interest from the content providers whom we assist in monetising their content” says MobiMedia managing director, Tim Legg, who is also co-founder and chairman of the Ole! Media Group. “We have been predicting the rise in consumption of video on demand (VOD) for some time, but these numbers are factual evidence that the ‘snacking’ trend for visual content is increasing, and will do so for some time.

“Providing a showcase for local content is one of the most important elements in the MobiMedia offering, as it means not only do we have unique content for our audiences, but we are also able to open opportunities for local content creators to distribute and monetise their work. However, having said that, we are also carrying international content that resonates with local audiences. As our penetration and distribution network grows, we are expanding our content offering as well as the audiences to whom it is exposed.”