Mobile Network Operators: The Biggest Labels in Nigeria?
Traditionally, music and other entertainment products have been owned by those that own/control the means to exploit it. The big music…
Traditionally, music and other entertainment products have been owned by those that own/control the means to exploit it. The big music labels today generally began as technical and electrical equipment manufacturers, who also happened to be at the cutting edge of transformational recording and playback technology (gramophones, graphophones, phonographs, jukeboxes).
They were not involved in music making. Music was simply a way (one of a few) of selling their goods and services, through which (by happenstance) music could also be enjoyed.
Fast forward two hundred years to today’s Nigeria, and it is clear that the primary means of enjoying music is through, and involves, the technology of mobile network operators (MNO).
Of course it is now widely accepted that MNOs are the biggest ‘distributors' of music in Nigeria (and Africa as a whole), but this piece seeks to look at the possible next steps these huge companies can take in light of likely changes that are coming to the entertainment in…