UTILIZING ENTERTAINMENT PRODUCTS AS A CATALYST FOR ECONOMIC GROWTH IN AFRICA!

Entertainment is one industry that has the capacity to turn around economies in the world for very huge profit. Many advanced countries know this fact and have through the years created that enabling environment to foster young talents into delivering creative contents that have brought in both massive fame and fortune for both citizens and country. These countries have raked in massive wealth with the emergence of digital technology merging with raw creative talents to produce what is today known as 'entertainment products'; the internet has revolutionized entertainment by creating online media giants like YouTube, Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Spotify, iTunes etc. These companies in most cases have also aligned themselves with top telecommunication companies to harness the potentials of entertainment products for wealth creation and distribution. This 'NEW MEDIA' giants as of today are competing with traditional media organization like Local, Cable and Satellite TV broadcasters on a very massive scale globally. This entertainment product market rakes in billions of dollars annually which makes it a huge market; in all of these Africa has not been left out in the gigantic strides of the New Media Age. Although top-ranking mobile telecommunication companies operating within the African region have also tried in their bid to create that enabling environment for creative talents to thrive in Africa so that entertainment products could sell and create wealth in the African sub-region, the governments are largely to blame for not passing entertainment-industry-friendly policies to assist in utilizing the potentials embedded in the entertainment industry as a catalyst for economic growth. In fact, a lot has to be done as African governments need to pick a cue or two from how the advanced countries have used entertainment products in consortium with all of the big players both online and offline to generate massive streams of income revenue; in moving with the technological trend as it affects the entertainment industry, African governments need to put together policies that conform with the present age and time, not running day to day governance from laws carved out in the 70s or 80s.