Media
by Sanya Ademiluyi
The once vibrant genre of TV soap operas may be returning strongly as Etisalat ,Cadbury back The Johnsons
Oluwole Ade,is a JSS 2 student who’s favourite hobbies are playing video games and watching Western cartoons.But recently when he had a brief stay in the school clinic he had happened to watch The Johnsons.He liked it.Since then,he has eagerly watcthed several episodes of the Nigerian sitcom.’It is interesting and funny,’he says.
Well, over a decade after several consumer goods companies stopped sponsorship of Nigerian TV soap operas, The Johnsons may have reversed the situation.The new TV soap opera is enjoying the sponsorship of two leading Nigerian FMCG/service companies- Etisalat and Cadbury. The Johnsons airs on influential DSTV payTV platform, as well as a handful of local TV channels.The Johnsons is a comedy sitcom centred on one family which could re echo the hugely successful US comedy sitcom of the 1970s—Family Matters.
And as the family soap grows in popularity,it may be seen as a worthy successor to the popular soap operas of the 1980s on Nigerian TV such as Checkmate,Cock Crow At Dawn.These soaps of that period drew huge audiences and also attracted the sponsorship of big FMCGs companies as Unilever and PZCussons.
These sponsors with the deep pockets to finance these big TV productions later abruptly pulled the plug on those popular soap operas,just when their audiences had grown enchanted.Reasons for these unlikely separations, include unmet sales targets,inter wrangling among producers and actors. To fill in the gap,the big FMCGs marketers who sponsored the local soap operas resorted to foreign soaps from Mexico,Brazil,among others.A popular one airing currently on local TV is the Telemundo series,a Latin American soap opera.
Since then,the Nigerian movie industry known as Nollywood has happened,with big platforms such as Multichoice/DSTV striking deals them.Still, popular TV that can pull the kind of huge mass market audiences which the big FMCGsmarketers desired,remained without hit soaps.
The Johnsons appears to be attracting the big brand marketers.Asked to comment on the sitcom,Kingsley Omoefe, an independent film/TV producer says,” The Johnsons is well received by its audience and l hear it has high ratings.” Kingsley says that another reason for the sitcom’s growing popularity is that it is aired on all DSTV platforms—premuim,urban,compact and Gotv.It is even aired on the Yoruba and Hausa language channels with language subtitles,giving it a wide reach.”Omoefe is managing director of Golden Heritage Productions.
According to industry sources,DSTV/Multichoice commissioned the production of The Johnsons.And the entertainment company has been aggressively marketing the sitcom to big brand marketers, who are looking for suitable programmes with mass market appeal to put their ads.So far,DTSV has got two big spenders-Cadbuy Nigeria and Etisalar Nigeria on board The Johnsons as sponsors.
DSTV has been airing a Nigerian comedy sitcom series known as Clinic Matters on its Vox channel for some years now. Produced by Whitestone Productions,the series has enjoyed some advertising patronage from big consumer companies as Coca cola Nigeria and Unilever Nigeria.
Another TV series that has attracted sponsorship support is Superstory from Wale Adenuga Productions,WAP,which has been sponsored by Unilever Nigeria and its soap and detergent brands such as Lux,Omo and Dove,among others.The Superstory series has been on since the early 2000s enjoying quite some popularity.
The Johnsons’ lead charactors are played by actors Charles Onojie and Ada Ameen,both of whom have also made their mark in Nollywood,the country’s celebrated movie industry.
Some other entertainment companies such as Galaxy TV are adopting other ways to attract
The big spenders.Galaxy,a free TV channel airs some Nollywood home movies on its platform and puts in advertising,splitting revenues with the movie producers.Coca Cola Nigeria and Unilever are on their list of advertisers.
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