If we know more about Start Times or Canal plus Afrique, another audiovisual company continues to rise noisily. Kwese Media, a South African company, continues to surprise.
Rudy Casbi
While Canal plus Afrique acquired the broadcasting rights for the next 2018 World Cup, Kwesé Media also took part in the ball of the greats. Better yet, the Econetmedia group’s channel beat Startime and FOX Sports. An investment of 42 million euros enables it to make a breakthrough entry into the competitive TV rights market. Like its CEO, Zimbabwean Strive Masiyiwa: Kwese Media is no secret of its ambition. This pan-African bouquet wants to impose itself on the whole continent. Its strategy: partner with other major groups to acquire rights. Finally, as soon as the agreements are signed, the company offers national channels to broadcast events whose images are produced by Kwese Media in exchange for a financial return. This is how the Senegalese TV channel OBS TV was able to reach an agreement this week to broadcast the Senegalese team’s matches at the next football World Cup. This strategy on the continent is bearing fruit because the company created in 2015 already employs more than 200 people for all these chains.
Strive Masiyiwa: a discret man but an influential boss
This businessman who had previously shone in Telecommunications, is on the verge of success in the media. The 57-year-old Zimbabwean entrepreneur, who is 57 years old, is at the head of a fortune estimated in 2016 at $600 million, according to Forbes magazine’s ranking. While it is relatively discreet in the public sphere: its costs of shattering are no less noisy. The funding for the Young African Leaders 2010 program launched by Barack Obama, Strive Masiyiwa was already the main contributor. Speaking on the sidelines of the last African Leadership Network Forum in Mauritius, Zimbabwe’s richest man said, “The African continent must no longer be looked upon with condescension. We have to show the world that we are making important decisions for our continent and for humanity ». The least we can say is that he is putting words into action.
