Tajudeen Adepetu is at the helm of one of Nigeria’s biggest media conglomerate. The 50 years old media mogul has been described as the Ted Turner of Nigeria. He is a graduate of the University of Jos, and has served as the executive producer of Soundcity Music Video Awards (SMVA) and Managing Director of Consolidated Media Associates owners of ONTV, Televista Movies, Spice TV, Village Square, Soundcity, Business Television, and Frontrow Sports TV. Tajudeen who has been a top industry player in the Nigerian entertainment scene for over a decade, has provided many TV viewers with TV soaps such as Saints and Sinners, Candlelight, Treasures, One Love, Everyday People, Domino and others. His flagship channel, ONTV serves as Africa’s premier destination for content cutting across music, movie, soaps, Telenovelas, fashion, and sports. In this interview, with Hazeez Balogun, Tajudeen Adepetun speaks about ONTV Max, entertainment broadcasting in Nigeria and also gave business tips
With the addition of ONTV Max, how many channels do you now have under your stable? And what are they?
With this latest addition, the CMAGROUP now has four channels on the MultiChoice platforms, DStv and GOtv they are; the Soundcity Music Channel, Spice Fashion Channel, Televista Series Channel and the new ONTVMAX General Entertainment channel.
Tell us about CMA
CMA is a General Media Production and Television powerhouse with footprints in Satellite, Cable, Digital and Terrestrial Television; Consolidated Media Associates Limited is the ultimate brand and product enhancing and exposing company in today’s world, offering excellent creative choices in the production of content either for awareness, perception or product elongation.
The CMAGROUP produces six channels in general; Soundcity, Spice, Trybe, Access24, OnTV and Televista. Consolidated Media Associates Limited is Nigeria’s No. 1 leading Television Production Media House. The CMA television brands and products have grown to be admired by vast television groups and audiences across Africa. The success achieved by the company and her offerings over the years has created huge follower-ship for each of the individual Television Channel brands.
Consolidated Media Associates Limited as a National and Continental Player and Heavyweight originating from Nigeria has over the years strategically developed different Television Brands to suit and cater for clients and households. These CMAGROUP television channels are cut amongst the different spheres and genres in television viewership thereby maintaining a tailor made open-window for different advertisers.
In relation to the existing ONTV, what is different about ONTVMax?
ONTVMAX is a further rebranded extension of the ONTV experience and will broadcast other syndicated content from other CMAGROUP channels on DStv and GOtv, specifically from Trybe Movie Channel, Televista content like the telenovelas, spanking new and fresh music videos and exclusive contents from Soundcity, fashion and lifestyle content from Spice fashion channel and actualities, News information from Access24, making and creating a complete television package experience unrivaled by any platform currently in operation.
What have been your key drivers?
ONTV has been in existence now for three years, and from inception has consistently been rated the number one terrestrial station in Lagos. What has defined the success of ONTV has been its content. ONTV meets its viewers expectations in their various spheres of need, so if it’s drama, movies, music, telenovella, news, kiddies content and other family programmes and shows you will find ONTV there.
What sort of programmes should viewers look forward to with the launch of ONTV Max?
Our key drivers for content include, sports; the Omnisports daily global sports news package, which comes up every night and the highlight show of the same package, which gives breaking news, updated sports news six times a day.
We have an extensive library of telenovelas, be it Mexican, Filipino Brazilian or Indian, our viewers have come to expect the best from us, and we are yet to let them down. We also take news seriously, and provide a headline news service six times a day.
We provide a wide variety of quality productions on our Nollywood movie belt, whilst also providing a wide library in original drama productions; this we believe is why we have been rated number one for two straight years.
For best fresh music, we have partnered with Soundcity, the leading light in African urban entertainment and we dare say we are the first to bring viewers the best Nigerian and Pan African music hot from Nigeria’s talented artistes and global artistes. For Lifestyle, we have an array decent shows and delightful content from Spice TV, the only fashion channel in Africa.
What is your relationship with MultiChoice?
Our relationship with Multichoice is a unique one, where we provide the best of thematic channels for their various bouquets. The CMAGROUP has four of six channels now live on the DStv and GOtv platforms, these are: The Soundcity music and lifestyle channel; Nigeria’s truly first music channel, and the emerging leader in African urban entertainment, number one in ratings and now celebrating 10 years of its existence. The Spice Fashion Channel, Nigeria’s leading lifestyle channel and Africa’s first fashion channel. Televista Series Channel, and ONTV MAX general entertainment channel.
Why did you decide to launch ONTV Max on DStv and GOtv?
Our aim when we launch a channel has always been to provide an avenue for all to watch all our channels’ creative content, now with DStv and GOtv, viewers are able to see our other channels’ programs like the telenovelas which hitherto only broadcast on Televista, now available on GOtv as well as DStv. Access is the key point of television, ONTVMAX provides for her various viewers that access to a more enriched viewing experience.
What will you say is the key for success?
First and foremost, a vital key to success is defining what it is you want to do. I want to be a broadcaster, how do I get to be a broadcaster? You need to start with a very good education, mentors, focus, and a definition of a process to becoming a broadcaster. This means that nothing happens by chance.
You need to have a plan in place to reach your goal, and be focused on work out the plan daily. You have to also allocate appropriate time to see your goal accomplished. But that does not mean you shouldn’t have fun, because not having fun may be detrimental to achieving your goal. Having fun relaxes you, and opens your mind to the better possibilities that are available in your chosen career.
If your mind is clouded with worries or other distractions, and someone tells you to go from A to B and you will pick the money of your life, you will probably not see the ‘to’ between A and B, and so will get confused and miss it. Your mind is a very important tool to your success and needs to be free to generate quality ideas.
But in your industry, many people steal each other’s ideas and become successful with it.
Yes, don’t allow the fear that people will steal your idea stop you from discussing it with someone or people that are more knowledgeable than you in that area. This person or people can point out very critical pitfalls of your idea that you may not have seen, such as in your financial projection. They can give you sound ideas on how to raise funds, how to approach banks, suppliers, etc., and do other things that may save you lots of money.
Don’t ever start a project without discussing it first with someone who knows it better than you do, as far as I’m concerned there is no idea under the sun that is new, that you are so much afraid someone would steal yours. You have to keep reading, go on to the Internet to research and know what is happening around the world about what you are doing.
What will you say are the challenges you face?
The challenges we face on a daily basis in running our business are enormous. But if you have a purpose in life and focus, you will even come to enjoy challenges because you will see them as necessary evil to overcome to get to your goal.
I like to prepare for challenges before setting out on a project. I do what I call War Game, and it is like this for me: I want to produce a bottle of water, I ask myself ‘what are the possible things that could happen to prevent me from reaching that goal?’ I put everything in proper perspective.
Therefore, I’m ready for the challenges and I will be able to deal with them when they come up. This has really helped us to move ahead, because since we prepare for problems before hand, we are able to fix them when they show up.
It is erroneous to think you will not face challenges. Your trusted aides or highly qualified staff that you trained may decide to leave as is very common in our industry where we have huge need for qualified hands, and lots of poaching; the guy that is to write the next script may not show up, and you find yourself the one to complete it in a state of tiredness.
Sponsorship and advertisement is what keeps Tv stations alive, are they flowing?
The major issue we have is sponsorship, and because the society hasn’t totally embraced the idea of paying for entertainment, a case in point would be the number of people that pay for terrestrial TV, with this factor in mind advertisers would rather use the regular TV to reach their various target market. We hope that gradually Nigerians would see the advantage and exploit it.
What is it that has kept you going?
Resilience of the brand promoters and the conviction of the ideals of the brand have been the major motivating factors as well as being able to create a ray of hope in the life of the average Nigerian youth and give them a platform to enhance themselves. Another is the selfless service of consolidated media to the entertainment industry.
You are a very busy man, how do you juggle work and family?
Simple Time Management. A serious challenge that you may have to grapple with is how you manage your time with your family. No matter how successful you are in business, if you lose out on the home front, then you lose everything. It is practically impossible that you won’t have challenges on your way to success. The most successful people in business are those who first think of the possible challenging huddles, situating them properly, and looking for possible ways of dealing with them.
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