A war seems to be brewing between producers and the TV stations that show Nigerian movies.The reason is that the Association of Movie Producers has claimed that the way the stations, especially the pay TV stations like DSTV and Star Times, lavishly show the movies is killing the industry.According to the association, many people do not buy DVDs again since the TV stations show the works non-stop.
AMP President, Raph Nwadike, made this position known in Lagos on Friday, when dissecting the problems facing the sector, in company with other officials of the association, including, AMP BoT Chairman, Mr. Forster Ojehonmon; and a veteran producer, Chief Eddie Ugboma, who was as critical of happenings in the industry as ever.
Nwadike called on the Federal Government to develop a policy that would check the activities of the TV stations.He said that it was only in Nigeria that a station would commit up to seven channels to movies, especially from the same country.When reminded that the TV stations, especially DSTV, pays producers, making it a veritable channel of distribution, the AMP president said what was being paid was peanut compared to what the industry used to earn.
According to him, no outfit should show the movies on more than one channel.In his paper titled ‘The way forward for Nollywood’, he said, “Our airspace has been saturated with Nollywood films and this has effectively killed the VCD and DVD markets as our main source of distribution. We stand as one and say M-net should not have more than one channel in Nigeria showing Nollywood films. They can show the other Nollywood channels outside the country. Furthermore, no film that is less than two years old should come on the single channel with three runs in a year only.”Meanwhile, the association has also criticised the composition of the committee overseeing a partnership recently struck by the Tony Elumelu Foundation and the Federal Government.Nwadike observed that the selection of people into the committee excluded real film practitioners.Ugboma also said that many of the people who benefited from such interventions were political jobbers.
He lamented that government was always too eager to listen to them as it, according to Ugboma, hardly wanted to listen to the truth.He added that marketers who were up in arms against producers who marketed their works online were not realistic.He said the way they (marketers) conducted their affairs was inimical to growth.Ugboma urged the Federal Government to sign necessary agreements with other countries, so that Nigerian filmmakers could have an opportunity to operate internationally.