The Nigerian film industry does not have a formal film market, but there is active film distribution in Africa’s largest film industry.
The Nigerian film industry which comprises of Nollywood and Kannywood is estimated to be worth more than US$ 590 million annually; producing over 2, 400 movies annually and employing more than 1, 000, 000 people every year. But there are no statistics to confirm these reports, because they are not facts.
If the Nigerian film industry is really booming, then why are many of the filmmakers and actors still poor and powerless? In fact, majority of them cannot pay their bills!
Many of them are no longer producing movies and have turned to political campaigners to make money for their survival and welfare. Several of them spent more time at political campaign rallies than on film locations in 2015.
Only few of the active practitioners in Nollywood and Kannywood are comfortable.
The filmmakers are the most important sector of the Nigerian film industry, because they are the producers of the movies and without them, there will be no film industry. Then after them, the second most important stakeholders are the film distributors; bringing and selling the movies to the consumers through the film exhibitors owing the cinemas, vendors of the DVDs and online exhibitors.
The biggest problem and threat to the film industry is movie piracy.
Movie piracy is a global crime that started even before the emergence of the Nigerian film industry.
Piracy of movies has become worse with the development of new formats for film distribution using digital technologies like CDs, DVDs, VODs and online streaming platforms. And the pirates are not invisible, but they have become invincible. They have refused to stop their crimes all over the world. An wherever they cannot operate openly, they continue to flourish underground.
Movie piracy is worse in Nigeria, because the pirates operate with brazen impunity and are more powerful than both the filmmakers and film distributors. In fact, the filmmakers are afraid of the risks of confronting them. That is why the pirates are the biggest and largest distributors of movies in Nigeria with their vendors on every street and bus stop, and also on the internet. And they continue to thrive, because they offer more movies at cheaper prices to the consumers than the filmmakers and their distributors. They can package dozens of counterfeit movies and TV series in one single DVD for less than US$1, or N150, when the original movies are selling for more than US$200 for one title.
Majority of the consumers in Nigeria are the best customers of the pirates and they include the loudest noisemakers in the churches and anti-corruption crusaders who condemn corruption in Nigeria, but are also guilty of being the largest market for piracy, the worst corruption in the entertainment industry, the second largest employer of workers in Nigeria.
There is no way you can talk about film distribution without talking about movie piracy. The tragedy of piracy in Nigeria is the fact that even the filmmakers, music producers, artistes, distributors, exhibitors and vendors are all consumers of pirated movies, music recordings or books online and offline. You will see the film producer cursing pirates of his or her movie, going around the corner of the street to buy pirated music tapes or download the songs online. The musician or singer whining about pirates selling his songs illegally will turn around to buy pirated movies or download them from unauthorized websites. We will continue more on the Nigerian movies worst nightmare,...piracy
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