Sunday, September 10, 2006

Nigeria and The Gardener's Daughter

The love and romance business took a new turn some few weeks ago with the eclipse of Cuando Seas Mia- "When You Are Mine" in which, Silvia Navarro (Paloma) and Sergio Basanez (Diego) starred and the premiere of La Hija del Jardinero- "The Gardener's Daughter". For 11 months of September 2005 to August 2006 many household were held spell-bound with the Latin wand of this telenovela- Cuando, a greater response is already predicted for La Hija.

Since then, there have been a re-asessment of the commercial success that followed, in the trail of that Mexican serial. Nollywood may have tried getting an unprecedented revolution in the home video genre, but the telenovelas have brought such an epic interest of millions of households in Nigeria since its advent a few years ago.

Any smart investor in entertainment should know that it is demand that dictates the supply ecomomics of TV-Movies in the entertainment world. That is why most popular movies have to go back to the production of part two or even three. X-men, Superman Returns, MI I, II, III, Splash I and II,...etc

If telenovelas that were regarded as 'stale' (in terms of being 6-3 year old) in the entertainment world can pull crowd of loyal veiwers, then our entertaiment investors fom Nigeria should know that the current ones would practically carry the multitude from the jungle of 'obsolete' talenovelas to the world reckoning.

Big entertainment investors like SONY did not allow the telenovela wave to pass them by, they launched into it and made everybody happy while they went home with full pockets.

Just two weeks ago, a new telenovela released by Mariana Ochoa "Love Without Conditions" was a sell-out in the first week in 72 countries. Neither Nigeria or Africa were reckoned with in that distribution channel. Why? because we are still in the jungle of entertainment industry, despite our acclaimed 3rd position in the world of movie production.

It is time for local and international investors to re-appraise the Nigerian and African market for this serial. Just like SONY did for India. A wealth of mutual joy and happiness await any investor that can give this a second thought and purposeful action.