investment

- StarTimes has TV operations in eight African countries, including Tanzania, Nigeria, Burundi, Rwanda, Guinea, the Central African Rep., Mozambique and now Kenya.

The local film industry’s efforts to position SA as a world-class film-making destination were boosted this week when a group of South Africans jetted off to New York to rub shoulders with the rich and famous at the Tribeca Film Festival.

iRoko Partners, a Nigerian based, digital distributors of Nigerian music and movies and one of the largest and fastest growing black owned internet companies, has raised $8 millions in funding from Tiger Global, a hedge fund run by an early Facebook and Zynga investor.

In its genuine effort to sanitise, empower and create an enabling environment for tourism stakeholders to explore and maximise the full benefits of tourism, the apex tourism regulatory agency in Nigeria, the Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC)  last Friday entered into a partnership with NTA and launched three tourist products continued to add value to tourism.

- Visual Unity system integrator and multi-screen platform provider has entered into a joint venture with Telemedia Africa to establish Visual Unity Africa. The company, based in Nairobi, offers system integration and professional services to the local broadcast, information technology and telecommunications industry, along with specialist research and development to develop innovative mobile applications.

In the bruising roller-coaster ride to digital migration in Kenya and across Africa, Multichoice may well have established first-mover advantage with the introduction of its GoTV service that is currently being offered to residents of Nairobi and its environs. The GoTV service launched last year in Kenya is offering 21 digital TV channels including the local free to air stations to subscribers who buy a decoder at Sh6255 and offers a glimpse into what the post-migration TV landscape might look at.

As part of part of M-Net exciting plans for the expansion of the popular AfricaMagic channels, MultiChoice wishes to advise DStv subscribers that M-Net Africa (Channel 102) will be swapped with a brand new channel -- AfricaMagic Entertainment (Channel 128) on DStv.

To facilitate this change M-Net Africa (Channel 102) was switched off air on Sunday at 23:59 and the new channel AfricaMagic Entertainment (Channel 128) was launched yesterday at 18:00 CAT.

- At MIPTV 2012, there was much discussion about crowd-funding as a potential source of that money, but Danae Ringelmann, co-founder and chief operating officer at IndieGogo, said success would not come simply by having projects on well-known crowd-funding websites like hers or Kickstarter. Ringelmann said: “A lot of people think they can just put up a campaign, walk away and money will arrive from nowhere. We call that the field of dreams, and it just doesn’t work in the real world. You have to be proactive.”

Last February Sweden, through the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), concluded an agreement under which 30 million Swedish Kronor (around US$4.5 million) will be donated to UNESCO to support its activities in the field of community media, aiming at empowering poor populations, especially women and girls, to exercise freedom of expression and opinion, and be heard in the public debate.

Cineflex is now permanently stationed in Cape Town. Cinesky, offers aerial filming in Cape Town, as well as ground tracking services for the entertainment and sports industries.

“Our affiliation with top helicopter service suppliers enables us to service and support high end video and aerial filming production, in Cape Town and throughout Africa. “