It was a night of fun at MTV Base Day celebration of its 19th anniversary in Nigeria at The Good Beach in Lagos recently.Celebrities such as reality TVstar, Soma, VJ Adams, Eltee Skhillz, Skales, Morravey, and delegate from U.S. consulate, Mtv Base culture squad members and others graced the occasion.
The Country Manager, Paramount Africa, Bada Akintunde-Johnson, said that Mtv Base and other channels have been active in the market, shaping culture, amplifying stories, celebrating African excellence in the creative spaces as well as creating a platform for African music.
“Mtv Base in 19 years has consistently been the number one music and lifestyle channel, while nickelodeon within that time has been the number one children’s channel.
“We organised the video training because we needed the content to fill 24 hours of programming on the channel and move the industry higher to a point where videos are at par with the rest of the world and that’s exactly what has happened.
“There is nothing that gives us more joy now than knowing that if the hours daily were extended to 200 or even 2000 there would be more than enough music videos to play in that time because the music industry has grown so much since then.”
Speaking on the company’s success story, Bada attributed it to its deep connection and culture root to the youths, its major target audience, adding that the company constantly reinvents itself to remain relevant as the number one entertainment brand.
According to Senior Channels Manager, Paramount Africa, Busola Komolafe, the global trend in afro beats started with Mtv Base by virtue of its awards like the BET awards.
Reeling out one of the firm’s major contributions to the entertainment space, she said that the emergence of paramount in Nigeria redefined the music video space.
“Back in the days, if an artist wanted to shoot a quality music video, he or she had to travel out of Nigeria but we changed the scenario. We upgraded the level and quality of video creation in Nigeria. We even organised master classes for directors, but now most videos are shot in Nigeria.
“The beautiful thing about our channel is we don’t just play music videos by popular artists, it’s for everyone, as long as you have a nice clean and decent music video, we are going to play it on our channel. So, we keep promoting Nigerian and African music,” she said.
