Business
Airtel Nigeria launches TV service. Innovation or mere imitation?
Telecommunications services provider, Airtel Nigeria, has reportedly “made a debut in the Television (TV) Service” with its new offering that will afford subscribers real time TV viewing experience.
According to plans, the product is expected to be a digital destination where users can follow live TV sessions, watch music videos, join the news and lots more.
While this is a new development for the telecommunications services provider, it is coming 8 years late, as MTN Nigeria launched a similar offering (MTN Mobile TV) sometime in 2012.
In fact, the MTN Mobile TV product was an upgrade of an old MTN TV offering it launched in 2007, where a specialised phone from the company could only access the TV feature.
MTN’s 2012 offering granted access to users with internet-enabled mobile phones. This appears to be what Airtel is replicating in 2020.
Like the MTN product, Airtel will be streaming contents from established networks such as Inspiration TV, Al Jazeera English, Bloomberg, Trace, Gametoon, Fashion Box, Bollywood, Nautical, God TV among others.
Although, it is still too early to tell what the future holds for the new offering, analysts are nonetheless likely going to criticise the offering, labelling it as nothing innovative; a mere imitation. Some may even question the business sense in such an idea in an era of numerous independent video-on-demand platforms.
It remains to be seen how Airtel stakeholders will receive the development. If the response is negative, the board and management of the company may be in for some hard time with investors.
Join the conversation
Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism
Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.
As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.
If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.
Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.
INVESTIGATION: In Kwara, multimillion-naira milk processing plant is abandoned, converted to a chicken outlet
After the government spent millions of naira to establish a milk processing plant in Kwara State that would provided jobs...
SPECIAL REPORT: For Sokoto communities, promise of healthcare is akin to death sentence
In this story, ABDULRASHEED HAMMAD delves into the dire realities of Primary Health Care services in Sokoto State, shedding light...
ICYMI…SPECIAL REPORT: NNPCL hides behind PIA to frustrate disclosure, accountability
Nigeria’s major oil company, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL), in what appears to be a common practice of disregard...
INVESTIGATION: Multi-million naira Ekiti resort center remains uncompleted a decade after
The multimillion-naira project, expected to comprise recreational buildings, now consists of cassava farmland, a bush used for excretion, and a...
SPECIAL REPORT: Torturous experiences of students with disabilities in Oyo tertiary institutions
For students with disabilities in Oyo state-owned tertiary institutions, learning is a torturous and distressing experience, considering the building structures...