Online gold goes begging
In the technology era, the online space has proved to be handy in aiding multiple facets of life by offering ready solutions to users.
Subsquently, in the artistic realm, online spaces such as YouTube, Spotify and BoomPlay, among others, have proved to be a steady market for content creators. There is an apparent excitement as artists such as musicinas Eli Njuchi, Kell Kay, Driemo and Patience Namadingo share numbers of viewers.
A few days ago, Afro-pop artist Driemo was celebrating hitting one million views on YouTube in two months for his song Pano.
Driemo’s manager Van Ngongo in an interview yesterday said the figures show how much the brand of the artist is growing. He said with the limited access to Internet services, it is not easy to achieve such numbers in Malawi.
Despite the apparent breakthrough some local artists have registered on such platforms, there is little or no financial gains at all being tapped from their local followership.
The Google policy currently in use does not permit their accounts to be monetised.
Art enthusiast Denis Imaan, in an interview, said given the status quo, local artists are wasting money in creating and promoting content that they cannot benefit from.
He said: “YouTube only pays you against viewers based in locations where monetisation is possible. So, our Malawian viewers don’t count as we are not supported by the policy in place.
“The only other way is to get product mentions and placement into the content and get local brands to pay you for it. You need to convince them that you can create larger visibility for their products or brands.”
Artist manager Prince Chikweba said the process through the digital evolution has been slow for Malawi.
He said there is a lot of technological support needed to enable artists to start reaping from the numbers they are attaining on the online platforms.
“It is a process that has just started. We will get there with time. We are in a phase that our friends moved on from long time ago. They also encountered this transition,” he said.
For this reason, some Malawian artists have opted to have their YouTube accounts domesticated elsewhere such as Zambia or South Africa to enable them earn something. Chikweba said that is the only option they have now.
He said: “We have to do what we can, including changing locations digitally so we are included in the global market. But it all depends on having someone to finish the authentication process for you. You need people to survey in terms of the process. It is not easy. ”
Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority director general Daudi Sulemani said the issue is more of a policy matter and not geographical. He said the reason the content is not monetised is because of the internal Google policy.
“It is a business decision that Google makes. We can only engage them and pursue them to change. We have engaged Google and we will continue engaging them to allow them start monetising Malawian content,” he said.
