Meet Alex Okosi; The Media Titan ,The Brain Behind Viacom Africa – MTV Base Africa

Alex Okosi epitomizes Africa’s promise; young, gifted and very ambitious. After all, he sits at the helm of Viacom International Media Networks (VIMN) Africa, heading up multimedia entertainment brands MTV Base Africa, MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon for Africa, VH1 Classic‎ and BET International. Okosi is responsible for bringing the media behemoth to the Africa, initially developing and launching VIMN’s first bespoke channel for the continent, MTV Base Africa back in February 2005. ”I have been fortunate enough to develop VIMN’s business plan for Africa, put together a pan-African team and successfully launch the channel,” said Okosi, who took a leave of absence from his then-M.B.A program at University of California, Los

Angeles (UCLA) to pursue the opportunity. Towering at 6″1, Okosi, named Young Global Leader in 2013 by the World Economic Forum, has a commanding presence about him and a hardcore work ethic. It took me several weeks to lock down an interview date with him; between his Johannesburg, South Africa office, where VIMN Africa offices are headquartered and his publicist in Europe. I finally caught up with the global corporate executive in Los Angeles, California, of all the cities in the world. He had flown into the country for several meetings and award show; over a hearty brunch I chatted with Okosi, who spoke candidly about his career moves and his vision for Viacom Africa.

Alex Okosi, Senior Vice President & Managing Director, Viacom International Media Networks, Africa. According to Okosi, who had taken a high-profile assignment with the Strategy and Business Development team in Europe, Viacom the 6th largest broadcasting and cable company in terms of revenue, “was at that time, in every region of the world but Africa and internally, there was a lot of interest within management to complete the global picture.” However, while VIMN management knew that Africa was the last economic frontier, according the Nigerian-born media executive, “noone wanted to do it (establish VIMN’s physical presence in Africa),” leaving him no choice but to incessantly persuade the “powers that be” of the potential of Africa’s nascent market. Management’s hesitancy to enter Africa  was understandable; 54 countries with mostly different languages and disparate cultures, all in varying phases of economic development, political instability and poor policies still plaguing a number of African nations and significant auxiliary investments required for infrastructure development beyond just the business of television. However Okosi was eyeing the growth indicators and emerging trends bubbling beneath the continent’s then persistent narrative of languishing economies and impoverished nations, “what was particularly exciting for me about Africa’s economic momentum and growth surge was that we would potentially be in a position to serve the rapidly growing but extremely underserved consumer base.” It helped tremendously that Okosi had the backing of his mentor and now former boss, William Roedy, former Chairman and CEO of MTV Networks International, “I tried to keep the strategy very simple: distribution. I wanted MTV to be in every household in the world. The mantra I had was creative, aggressive, relentless; we were not going to stop until we were in every household,” said Roedy. 

Approval for the roll-out in Africa finally came in 2004 and Okosi’s tenacity and bold muscular bet on Africa paid off, because within two and half years of launching the media conglomerate in Africa, they broke even. Since then, the media trailblazer has been the driving force behind VIMN’s rapid expansion of its footprint across Africa as a “multi-portfolio brand” distributed on multiple platforms including cable and satellite, internet, mobile and radio; “since we launched, we have been the fastest growing within Viacom in terms of revenue growth,” said Okosi who did not disclose revenues from VIMN Africa. In late August of last year, VIMN Africa moved to a new tier on DStv, the leading digital satellite television service in Africa, reaching even more households; “the evolution of us as a media company being able to launch more channels in Africa has been based on us seeing a gap in the market and responding to the market needs,” said Okosi. However, despite early signs of a successful penetration into Africa, Okosi said “from the beginning, we were disciplined in our focus on building a sustainable business model beyond the pay TV platform because it is limited. To scale and grow our business significantly in this region, meant reaching the mass youth audience through branded blocks of our content on our ‘Free-To-Air’ (FTA) television channel partners.” This means a 23-year old university student in Nigeria without access to pay TV, most likely Dstv, is able to access VIMN branded content on terrestrial or FTA television channels, Silverbird TV, or African Independent Television (AIT), which carry a block of hours dedicated to Viacom branded content (MTV and Nickelodeon).”Our audience stretches from 12 to 34-year olds but the make up of our core audience is 16 to 24-year old youth,” said Okosi, describing the demographics of their viewers on both pay TV and FTA platforms who also come from varying socio-economic classes. According to Okosi, this strategy enables them to widen their reach but target within that demography. 

In recent years, the race for African eyeballs has intensified due to the uncovering of favorable factors previously masked by a skewed narrative; Africa is a very youthful continent, almost 60% of the continent’s population are 35 and under and its middle class is the fastest-growing in the world, with 3oo million people of Africa’s 1.11 billion population. “The marketplace is dynamic with deregulation sweeping across the continent and as result there are more players coming into this space. We are constantly upping our strategy and executing to stay ahead of the curve,” said Okosi. To achieve ubiquity in Africa, VIMN Africa is currently distributed via a combination of pay-TV / Direct-To-Home (DTH), FTA, Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) and Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) affiliates and can be seen on a variety of distribution platforms in 50 African countries including pan Africa on Dstv, Kenya on Zuku, Angola, Mozambique on Zap, Cape Verde on CV Multimedia, Burundi, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda on StarTimes, Nigeria on Silverbird TV and AIT, Uganda on WBS, and Ghana on GHOne.

In addition to an aggressive strategy to reach as many people in Africa, particularly the youth, Okosi also had to prove the ability to monetize Viacom’s investment and presence in a continent that had been labeled as short on business viability and profitability; “our business model monetizes in 3 primary ways; 1. distribution model paid from our distribution partners (Dstv etc) 2. advertising 3. partnerships and sponsorships, for example, with our version of the MTV Africa Music Awards (MAMAs).” To dispel any initial doubts or reservations on profitability, when MTV Base Africa premiered on Feb. 22, 2005, the first video to air was the hugely popular song “African Queen,” by Nigeria’s mega-artist, 2Face Idibia, with global brands Motorola and Nokia as the first big advertisers on the network. And from then, the media executive had to strike a balance between keeping an eye between growing his bottom line and creating content that resonated with local audiences and attracted brands; “we recently launched Comedy Central and it is currently one of the top channels on the Dstv bouquet. Comedy Central is an aggregation of comedy content, both local and international. Comedy, like music, is an important aspect of the viewing experience in Africa.”

Beyond just broadcasting content in Africa, Okosi also had to develop along the television value chain; in particular improve the quality of the video production, and develop and enhance Africa’s talent. For Okosi, the launch of Viacom in Africa was not intended to be an exercise of “cut and paste” Western formula onto Africa; rather, he also had to develop the ecosystem and set up a team of Talent and Music Representatives in key African markets that trained local video producers to create high quality videos with both pan-African and global appeal. “In showcasing Africa to the world, we wanted people to focus on the talent and not the quality.” And to build his team of 80 or so personnel, he created a corporate culture centered around A.F.R.I.C.A, the acronym for the company’s values; “ I coach and nurture my team to be;

• Accountable,
• First time winners (plan for success),
• Respectful,
• Innovative mindset,
• Collaborative (team player),
• Attention to detail.”

Later, against the Los Angeles dusk, atop the Ritz Carlton hotel 26th-floor rooftop I watched Okosi exuding charm, interact effortlessly with BET head honcho herself, Debra Lee, other Viacom executives as well some of Africa’s top artists in the country for weekend-long festivies; Tiwa Savage, Davido, Mafikizolo, Ice Prince. It then dawned on me that Africans are earnestly taking charge of the continent’s transformation and Okosi is arguably one of the new faces of corporate Africa; global, sophisticated, savvy and very driven.

Credit : Farai Gundan