Telecommunications company, MTN Nigeria, has announced fresh plans to redefine digital music distribution, artiste monetisation and industry collaboration in the country.
- +MTN moves to rebuild trust in music industry
At the MTN Music Workshop themed, “Reverberation: The Blueprint for Africa’s Digital Audio Future,” held during the week at the MTN Event Centre, Falomo, Lagos, on Wednesday, the company unveiled a fresh push into the music space, promising a creator-focused era driven by collaboration, transparency and better opportunities for industry players.
At the MTN Music Workshop themed, “Reverberation: The Blueprint for Africa’s Digital Audio Future,” held during the week at the MTN Event Centre, Falomo, Lagos, on Wednesday, the company unveiled a fresh push into the music space, promising a creator-focused era driven by collaboration, transparency and better opportunities for industry players.
Speaking at the event, the Chief Executive Officer of MAD Solutions, Bugwu Aneto-Okeke, said Africa must begin to build its own music infrastructure instead of depending on international streaming platforms for value extraction and monetisation.
According to him, the imbalance in streaming revenue between African territories and foreign markets remains one of the industry’s biggest challenges.
“There’s this narrative that we see across social media, that one million plays from Nigeria amounts to about $300, while one million plays from a place like the United States of America gets about $5,000 a month. This is a problem for our territory, and it can be fixed. I can assure you that MTN has the solution for that,” he said.
Aneto-Okeke added that the success of African music globally must also reflect in the revenues generated within the continent.
Also speaking, General Manager, Business Growth at MTN Nigeria, Funsho Finnih, admitted that artistes and other stakeholders were previously sidelined despite the commercial success of products like Caller Tunes.
“We didn’t do so badly, but then we made a lot of mistakes, because we didn’t carry along the industry,” he said.
Finnih explained that MTN’s new direction would prioritise artistes through transparent systems, audience insights and improved monetisation opportunities.
“What is important to us at this point in time is the artiste. Without the artiste, everybody will go home and can do other things. Our focus here is going to be the artiste,” he stated.
He further disclosed that the proposed platform would provide artistes with audience data, revenue visibility, merchandise opportunities, live performance support and advertising value.
“We intend to bring that global standard to the Nigerian market and from a monetisation point of view, from an intelligence point of view, from an insights point of view and everything else that we are able to gather from there,” he added.
Chief Digital Officer at MTN Nigeria, A’isha Mumuni, said the company had reflected on its previous approach to music distribution and was determined to engage creators differently.
“MTN has been in the music business since 2006. We started with collections. We made mistakes, but with the explosion of Nigerian talent, we realised that we have to come back into the game. However, we don’t want to do it the way we did it before. That time, we focus on the consumers,” she said.
She added that the workshop was intentionally designed as an intimate engagement to allow stakeholders share honest feedback about the future of the platform.
On his part, the Chief Executive Officer of the company, Karl Toriola, also described Nigerian music as a global cultural force shaping identity, fashion, language and business beyond the country’s borders.
“Nigerian music is no longer emerging, it has become completely global. It shapes sound, culture, identity, fashion, language and business power beyond our borders,” he said.
Toriola stressed that the future of music distribution would be built on trust, transparency and fair partnerships.
