Africa: Kenya – Akili TV Establishes a Area of interest for Itself As an Schooling Channel and Is Beginning to Develop a Sub-Saharan Enlargement Plan

London — Akili TV is coming up for its second year birthday as a channel. It’s been hard work but it has gone a long way to establishing itself as a niche education channel. Russell Southwood spoke to its co-founder Jesse Soleil about how it works and what he’s got planned.

Soleil’s wife is Kenyan and he had been going backwards and forward to the country for two decades: “I do a TED talk every year on how to make money out of content. A person came up to me afterwards and said ‘I’m working for the Ministry of Information and Communications on Kenya’s 2030 Vision and we want to make Kenya a content economy’. “

“My expertise and that of my co-founder (and business partner) Jeff Schoen is in the childrens’ entertainment business. So we said we would do a pro-bono visit to see if we could help. We ended up at CCK and said it would be wonderful if we could get three hours of continuous TV on a broadcaster. They said they will ask you to pay and not share the revenue. But, they said, we’re going from analog to digital: would you guys be interested in having a TV channel?”

It took the co-founders a year to put together a business plan and they took it to CCK (now named CAK) and within a week got a provisional license. By 2015 that provisional license was turned license and they started trying to raise money: “We put together the only childrens’ education channel in the country. It was going to be Free-To-Air so that it would be free regardless of income level. After that, people asked us to be on the (pay-for) satellite and fibre platforms.”

It planned to launch just as Covid-19 was careering around the globe. This proved both helpful and practically difficult. Parents stuck at home during lockdown were pleased to find suitable content for their offspring: “A large amount of programmes were not available because Covid-19 shut down everything in the USA and Canada. So we reduced the amount of programming in the initial offering.”

One key challenge was how to get audience ratings: “Children were not part of the ratings measurement process: “After three and a half months we did an audience survey with Geopoll. The numbers from this survey showed we 5.5 million kids and 4.3 million parents watching every week.” It ended up using Facebook as its marketing platform and got 100,000 parents following them in the first six month. It has also used Instagram which has “slightly higher LSMs.”

The channel programming template is simple but effective. There are programmes aimed at those in early childhood in the mornings and early afternoon. These feature pre-academic learning of things like shapes, sounds, letters and phonics: “There was a lack of social and emotional programming in the early afternoon. For example, programmes that said it’s OK to be angry but don’t bite your friends. Be tolerant. Also kids coming home school can watch action and adventure with an educational bent.” On Friday there is content for all the family that is “a guilty pleasure for parents.” On Saturday morning there is youth programming before noon for when older kids want to take over the screens: “We’re starting to think of doing original material in this slot.” Sunday is repeats.

It raised US$1.75 million to launch the channel and is halfway through a second round to raise US$3.5 million. Money has come from Foundations and investors in the UK and USA who were “bullish about the idea. There were some who said TV is dead and wanted something on a mobile phone. Others said: why go to Africa?”

In order to attract advertising and avoid controversial products, Akili TV has “created the most child protective policy possible. No sugar, no candy, etc. There were plenty of people selling crisps who wanted to advertise but we had to turn them down.” So its commercial advertising targets are diapers, different types of healthy consumer products and hygiene products like Dettol. There is then an NGO/Foundation stream of funding “where you get someone who understands what you’re trying to do, organisations USAID and Keep Kenya Learning. We want to develop new, original programmes in Africa and we’ve got the grants to do it.”

“The audience gap we’ve measured in Kenya, the growth we’ve been able to make happen and the trust we’ve built, we realize will be of value in other countries. We want to develop a Sub-Saharan African expansion plan with a strong Free-To-Air component and a lot of custom content.”

In Brief

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CN to the Rescue, Cartoon Network’s original local production, returns for a new season. With authentic African humor and fresh, inventive content that mixes the forces of live-action comedy with great animation. Following the massive success of season one, which was the most-watched show across all kids’ channels in South Africa in January 2021, CN to the Rescue2 takes us deeper into the adventurous parallel world of Tapiwa’s ‘Imagination Room.’ The lines between reality and animation blur here, the story becomes more realistic, and the adventure becomes even crazier than ever!

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