Afrostream (YC S15) Is Netflix for African and African-American Movies
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It's also unclear to me that Netflix is even lacking in this specific niche. My ex-girlfriend loved browsing my netflix over a VPN because it had so much of her african american comedy. (Admittedly, what she - an African woman - considered a good selection might be different from what westerners consider a good selection.)
In a few cases, e.g. Parables ($NICHE=devout christians), I can see how they offer something different - they deliberately exclude content (e.g., movies that offend christian sensibilities) that their members don't want. But that doesn't seem to apply here.
Netflix is big, that's sure, but as said in the thread, Netflix is like the big Three (ABC, NBC, CBS), and target the largest audience possible. And I am an avid client of Netflix too. They have an offer of African-American contents, even some African contents for sure. It's not complete. We have curated for one year some of the best and unseen African or African-descendant contents. Not only the Festival-sanctioned movies and series but also, the contents which are popular in local markets and that we are bringing to our customers. Seems to me that is more a segment than a niche, but I like to play a little with the words :)
Our vision here is double : to propose a large selection of african, african-american movies and tv series, first in France (I am French), and french spoken countries, in Europe and Africa, first. Netflix is not yet in Africa, so we have some technical challenges there, but we will be basically the first.
To propose the new african and african american positive characters to all : on that regards, our customers will not only be black
Do you know Drama Fever : the core of the Drama Fever is Asian contents, they have 3,5 millions active users. 80% of these users are non-Asian.
That's one of our goal : to let know that there is a diversity in movies, and that everybody could watch them with same pleasure
Basically, if you're successful, there's nothing stopping Netflix from licensing the same shows as you. Since they're Netflix, they'll probably negotiate better content deals, have better recommendations, better mobile apps, more supported devices, etc.
Another danger is that Netflix has experience making their own shows. If your target audience looks enticing enough, Netflix can produce exclusive content to woo them over. They've already started doing this with anime (Knights of Sidonia).
All-in-all, this seems like a really tricky business to be in. I wish you luck.
I personally don't think Netflix could be exhaustive in every way because the curation work is very important here, to satisfy every segment in the world. Netflix is not in Africa though,
Drama fever, Crunchyroll, viki.com did well in their segment. And we intend to be the best in ours.
Crunchyroll provides the immediacy of fansubs but with legitimacy and sees that license holders get paid something where they weren't getting paid anything.
Additionally, the type of content that Crunchyroll provides isn't necessarily something Netflix would go after, in that it is released on an episode by episode basis (in line with air dates in Japan) rather than all at once (as is the typical Netflix model) and that there is rarely dubbing (which most, though notably not all, Netflix anime has).
That said, Netflix has been seriously expanding their anime efforts. I really do wonder if Crunchyroll is going to be able to keep growing as Netflix expands its presence more and more.
All that said, the one thing I'm really not sure of is how long Netflix can continue to do more and more licensing deals and original content without increasing its subscription cost. In that respect, I think the iTunes model is a lot more stable (and I'm perfectly happy paying for close-to-airtime delivery I get for the shows I do watch through it).
My only gripe with paying for that content is that the price premium seems to be pretty high on iTunes given that the content has revocable DRM (then again, Apple is more likely to be around in this space for a long time than any of the other current players).
In summary: I think you might be right, but it's definitely a pretty dynamic situation. Hope it goes well!
That said, it's a good idea, a big bet, and I sincerely wish you the best.
The marginal value of content with a strong, dedicated, but niche following to Netflix -- whose branding is mainstream and not targeted to that niche -- may be less than it is to a provider specialized in targeting that niche, which means that the licensing fee Netflix could afford to pay is less.
Further, your argument presupposes that all streaming licenses are non-exclusive. That is, rather decidedly, not the case. If someone else secures an exclusive license, Netflix cannot license the same content and provide customers with a superset of what the niche provider offers.
> It's also unclear to me that Netflix is even lacking in this specific niche.
It probably isn't compared to any major provider that a consumer is going to find today. OTOH, it could be in the future, especially if a more targeted competitor exists that starts outbidding Netflix for exclusive licenses for content in that niche.
Yes, I had yummyfajita's question and this does make sense... a "niche" (this is pretty big to be calling "niche" really, but let me discuss the generic case) could afford to charge a bit more of interested customers and focus that stream on somewhat more pricy licenses.
Which, once again, just makes me think that Netflix is, if not "cutting itself off at the knees", at least hobbling itself with such a low flat-rate price. On the other hand it can hardly afford a complicated "full cable"-style offering, but some sort of middle ground may be something they're forced to do someday. Hulu, too, for that matter... even as a subscription service focused on TV it seems to me that the selection is limited by the fact the subscription price is just too low.
In the meantime, as a consumer I have no trouble mixing a nice Netflix subscription for flat-rate stuff and mixing in per-show fees from Amazon, but it's still money Netflix seems to be leaving on the table.
My family, for example, subscribes to Netflix, Hulu, HBO, and CrunchyRoll.
I suspect in the future there will be more and more niche channels like Afrostream (and CrunchyRoll).
Except that it airs orders-of-magnitude more content than HBO from a variety of sources. It's something between cable and a channel.
It's not HBO, it's Netflix.
We, Afrostream, have a bigger house to fill ;)
I would not be so quick to discount the difficulty of building a large number of commercial relationships in the long tail of African production. The mere time investment and tedium of dealing with producers who are not used to distribution channels beyond their local habits is a barrier to entry - and hence a valid strategic positioning.
"can" is always a problem with big companies, they have so many other works to do they rarely get time. Thats where small companies can win some niche market and do a better job.
I think individual channels will win out over cable style packages, though there might be room for an aggregator that offers discounts.
I'd rather pay for HBO and Netflix over cable.
To my knowledge the majority of cable channels are just content from a handful of producers divided up by "genre", since most people will have entire sections of unused channels that don't match their interest when paying for cable I think we'll move towards pick and choose — possibly really soon.
[1]Which is their quoted mission, "become HBO faster than HBO can become us".
Let's face it : Netflix could do that, but they have one year to catch up, fight is on
It seems part of your argument is that your content is so niche, Netflix would rather spend licensing money on content that has broader appeal, which is fine, except that its totally dependent on Netflix not changing its strategy, and that's a bad basis for a sustainable business.
African descent movies are so diverse. We have an African Diaspora all over the world which produce a ton of contents you never saw, you don't even know their existence and thant's our goal to diversify the point of view of a maximum of people. Yes Netflix has resources, a lot of resources but we know our market well. They need to catch up, that's my word for now, fight is on
We don't intend to be "Netflix for blacks" or "Netflix for African people only" too, that's a bizarre idea to me, in fact. We have some quality movies in our catalog, and we hope to make it discover to all of you people :)
Irokotv is very centered on movies from Nollywood, and has started to have some movies from Hollywood.
We have another point of view : We are not the Netflix of a specific region, or the Netflix for certain people. We are the Netflix of the African Diaspora powered contents. We want to show what Afro descendants are capable of, and we want to solve the distribution problem of theses movies all over the world.
Irokotv was here first, and yes we will have Nigerian contents. But we have other goals. We want to distribute, create and show to the world how some contents you couldn't see are incredible. We want to show that we could have our black Superman, or our black James Bond. We want to expose all of the richness of all the African cultures (in USA, Brazil, France, UK, Mali, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Angola, Nigeria and more), all over the world
You can definitely succeed in a niche, provided you have some factors in your favor:
1. An audience that is dedicated to the content you serve
2. The ability to focus on the niche provides you a greater library than broader competitors have
3. The ability to market yourself in such a way that you build reputation with the core audience
The end result is you can create a product that other people will pass up competing offerings for that might have broader appeal - or will simply subscribe to both.
Netflix used to be the go-to for Anime for a long period of time. However, Crunchyroll was able to provide a much more massive library of anime on-demand and catered to the dedicated fanbase.
Good luck, Ludovic.
Seems Netflix is a big concern for a lot of people here. Since I am a subscriber to Netflix too, I think my first action is to unsubscribe soon to help us. Just kidding.
Netflix has some flaws too. And we intend to exploit them :) , let the fight begin
I think the biggest thing for you company, though, is to just put all your effort into getting operational where demand and connectivity are strongest. Don't worry about the others too much: you'll just get overstretched. Many projects have made that mistake. Just add them gradually over time.
T.
This is a great idea, but how do you protect yourself from Netflix and Amazon simply deciding to eat your category? It seems like as the 800 pound gorillas in the market, there's nothing preventing them from simply beefing up their catalogs and adding some categories to do the same thing.
FWIW, Amazon does offer Middle of Nowhere (the film in the article screenshot) for rental (no free streaming with Prime) and the "Customers Who Watched This Item Also Watched" is all African-American films as well. That said, it's not clear how deep their catalog goes, and they don't actually have an African-(American) category one can browse.
(Also, why did you write your last name in ALL CAPS? I've seen people do this before, but I've never understood what the convention is trying to achieve).
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but in France, it is common, but not necessary, to write your last name before your first name in many situations. And secondly, many people also have last names that are also first names so to avoid confusion and awkwardness it's denoted in all caps.
It makes me want to design all websites to have a single name field with 'Name as you want it to appear' (and a legal full name field if needed within the given domain). I've heard global addresses are even harder to account for.
http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-b...
https://www.mjt.me.uk/posts/falsehoods-programmers-believe-a...
Call him Tonjé (pronounce Tonjay), though, he will always answer you with a smile :)
it might be easier for the gorillas to just let them grow, spend the time rounding up and acquiring all the rights, and then buying out the smaller company.
Nothing that says they won't enjoy content from Africa! I hope you add subtitle support for multiple languages, and make it community driven.
IMO, that's the only way I can see for you to protect yourself from your niche being simply eaten by Netflix et al.
We have other ways to protect yourself from Netflix, though, but we can't reveal all our moves at once :)
One small question, why is the website in french? I think this product can have global audience, even better no?
At first yes we are French (with baguette and beret and all that stuff), and we know very well the European and African Market in the french spoken countries in this area. So we will start with the market we know well first. But we have a tremendous demand from other countries which send us a lot of messages.
Have a look at how many French-speaking countries there are in Africa.
Something I find lacking on broadcast TV is news coverage of Africa. In the US, the only place where you'll find regular English language broadcast TV news coverage of Africa is, oddly enough, through CCTV ("China Central Television" via the Chinese government). Though it is already possible to get _some_ African news coverage over the web, news as a content source for your service might be a worthwhile addition.
According to CCTV coverage, African radio broadcasting is (supposedly) extremely popular and far more widespread than TV. The pervasive use of radio is (supposedly) due to radio being less expensive than TV and far more widely adopted by the general populace. The part I found the most interesting is how both pre-recorded and live serial drama, niche, and educational shows are still being broadcast in Africa over radio (along with the expected music, news, and talk shows). Though it's audio rather than video and there a many companies in the "African Internet Radio" business, radio might (eventually) be another appealing content source for you.
Good Luck!
(I worked in Africa for a number of years)
I am Ludovic, cofounder and CTO of Afrostream. You are right the "African culture" in two words, doesn't exist in fact.There are a lot of different cultures in Africa. Do you know that Nigeria is the second or third producers of movies and series (behind India, and sometimes, USA :) ) Ghana is very productive too. West Africa (Senegal, Mali, Cameroon, Ivroy Coast...) have some interested movies too. Our goal is to show the difference, and to spread the word about these cultures.
We will not dub massively, we prefer people discover contents in their original format, with subtitles in their languages. we will dub in certain cases, though, with the good people.
it sounds like you are focusing on importing West African cinema into the USA, which does make sense.
Good luck.
BTW, what is one Nigerian firm you would recommend?
It will allow Americans (and others in the world) to learn more about actual modern African cultures. People might be surprised, hopefully not, how middle class Africans are not that different from middle classes of other ethnicities. Sure, there will be some cultural difference and there will be an accusation of Nigerian cultural imperialism, as their programming dominates, but so does Mexican culture on the rest of LatAm.
The programming may even prove to offer more authentic and aspirational programing to blacks everywhere bypassing hollywoods imprimatur --which can only be good.
Lots of African content is in English or french or with subs.
Plus, black Americans might be interested in programming from African countries, there is a historical connection, most non latams in the us have their own native programming from Hollywood, so there is no void to be filled by Univision. They are filling the void for latams in the us, however. Still Univision mostly presents Mexican content while latam is much larger than just Mexico.
We are convinced it's possible to other segments, and that's why we will open the door for all of you on Afrostream
I would keep this answer and use it every day, thank you :)
We're after all Africans :)
We knew better the sub-saharan countries for instance, so our network and focus is to go there first. We have a lot of work to have the best catalog from there first, and then we could extend.
I'm still waiting for a foreign film 'Netflix'...one day.
Where do you live in Africa exactly ?
also, will it feature "zulu (1964)"? Or are we going to have random values besides the continent-culture-clumping thing?
This is how I dealt with this question : The racism question is at heart of the building of Afrostream.
You need some contexts here. As I say (a lot) : We are French. French Television and movies are basically, how could I say that in a politically correct way, : white.
(disclaimer : my father is a black man with indian origin, from the Island of the Reunion, in the Indian Ocean, my mother is white from Brittany in France, I was born in Brittany)
We have not a lot of black heroes in our French movies. Correction : we have zero (except Omar Sy). We don't deal well with race in France, in a sense that we can't say we have an established racism, but a lot of small discriminations.
Tonjé and I are media guys. Tonjé wrote scenario, produce shows, directed a theater. The problem we see is that we don't have positive heroes. Basically : why could we not have a black James Bond ?
Our answer is Afrostream : to represent African descents in a positive way, in all their diversities (because, yes, black culture does not exist).
South African movies are definitely in our radar. I loved "Zulu" movie (I am sort of movie geek too), We will look at Egyptian movies too, because, why not.
We intend to have all of the diversities of the culture from African descents. African American movies are popular and will be on Afrostream. Nollywood, the movies from Nigeria, will be there too. We did and will do a big work of curation to unite the best of the African Diaspora. Because our goals are not just to show some movies on your smartphone, but to make learn about some culturees which are sometimes just ignored today. We just started with what we know more : West indies diaspora, West African Diaspora (Tonjé has some origins from Cameroon), African American movies (because, hey, who doesn't watch a good american movie in the world. that's our pop culture everywhere)
If we keep everything the same, but target a different demographic this service could be called: WhiteStream, a Netflix for whites and white-culture movies.
"The persuit of happiness" is classified as an Afro-American movie. Why is that? Does it portray black culture? Or is it because one or more actors have a black skin? I think it is the latter, because the theme from the movie is universal and transcends race.
James Bond is a hero, not because he is white, but because of his actions. Asking why there is no black James Bond is forcing race on an old fictitious English character (why do you care about the skin color of your heroes?). How to classify Morgan Freeman movies on the Afro-American scale? Add "Driving Miss Daisy" to the catalog, but leave out "Evan Almighty"?
"I’m going to stop calling you a white man. And, I’m going to ask you to stop calling me a black man. I know you as Mike Wallace and you know me as Morgan Freeman. You don’t say, "Well, ahem! This white guy named Mike Wallace." You don’t say it."
The point remains valid - why isn't there a black James Bond? Because Hollywood doesn't think Americans will go to a movie starring a black hero. It's really a self-fulfilling prophecy - if you don't film the movie, they won't watch it.
(Driving Miss Daisy is not a great example of Afro-positive movies, but whatever)
this isn't the 50s anymore. i don't know about france. but hollywood is way past that
(17% of movies didn't even have a single speaking black character, as of 2013)
http://annenberg.usc.edu/pages/~/media/MDSCI/Racial%20Inequa... http://annenberg.usc.edu/pages/~/media/MDSCI/Gender_Inequali...
It takes a movie and cuts together every single word & sentence spoken by an actor of color. Often the intro music is longer than the compiled lines. Moonrise Kingdom: 10 seconds.
Is it positive discrimination ? Since there is a political implication there, I don't think so, but I will try to answer.
Do you know the movie "Ride Along" ? It did more than 100M$ in the American market for a budget of 25M$. This movie has one of the best start of any movie all time in January.
Do you know how we could see this movie outside USA. Not in a movie theater in France, though. Piracy is the first channel to see african-american movies in Europe and Africa.
Some movies are not well distributed and it appears so that a lot of these movies are from or with an African descent castings. That's not fair. We will correct this fact. And if you want to call this positive discrimination, why not.
Afrostream is a service which will permit to show movies which are not shown in a lot of countries in a legal way. That's our political statement.
this is my gripe with positive discrimination. it is still discrimination.
you could have been embracing everyone. but you did the same that was being done before, and picked the single second largest group. why not call it low-budget-movies-netflix. or hard-to-watch-in-france-netflix? why pick one group/race and leave others out? that is just ...bad business practice :) you could have been streaming iranian movies as well, for example.
But in answer to your implied question "Why do you need a space/channel/site of your own?", the answer is that the larger space (France) is already white by default. Whites don't really need their own space, because they're the dominant majority, and media is generally made with them in mind already. So, if minorities don't carve out their own spaces, they will live entirely in a culture that doesn't represent them.
My fiance is half-black, and she's not that into TV/movies. I once asked her why, and she said that after a while, she just got tired of rarely seeing people like herself on-screen.
you don't understand my point here : We do not do a service for specific people, we do a service with specific contents.
I will try with another argument : Tyler Perry is one the most prominent performer of the USA. He did movies, series, theater. All successful. He is maybe the most complete artist in the USA. These productions were distributed in the USA. You can't find these production in France by example, but either in a lot of countries. Why ?
Afrostream's goal here is to distribute Tyler Perry and other talents all over the world. As I said, I don't know if this is positive dsicrimination, but Afrostream is my political statement to this 'Why'
We don't need to deal with racism, we want to tackle it.
To demand that every company do everything is ridiculous. It is very American to think that focusing on Afro-diaspora culture is somehow "racist" or "discrimination." The company is launching in France, Belgium, Switzerland, Senegal and Ivory Coast. Why would they stream Iranian movies as their first move? Should they also include documentaries and calculus lessons?
Why pick one group, one business goal? Because they'd like to have a successful business and that's how you start.
so are we going back to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaxploitation? how is that even portraying 'african' culture if you just get British culture and put black skin on it?
Blaxploitation (yet I would love to have this movie in Afrostream) was positive in a sens that it gives positive heroes who are black and it's very important to me that Black people think they could be what they want to be.
By the way, I dreamed to be Shaft when I was younger.
But let's face it, We don't have a lot of movies like that anymore, or they are not internationally distributed.
That's the question we want to solve with Afrostream.
And, again, African Culture does not exist.
That's the point of Afrostream, to have a great place to celebrate African Diaspora descendants and all of these different points of view.
Out of curiosity, are you going to include Egyptian films?
Let's face it : Will Smith played in a lot of top movies in this decade. Could you name another one ? :)
In France we have a Will Smith example too, His name is Omar Sy (saw in the last Jurassic World).
For one Will Smith, you have here in USA Tyler Perry, Kevin Hart, Chris Tucker, Chris Rock, Spike Lee (sorry for all the women I forgot here). These guys are awesome too. We want them everywhere in the world.