By Ismail Auwal
Al Jazeera and Arewa 24 announced on Monday that they had finalized plans to broadcast Al Jazeera English documentaries and series in Hausa to viewers in Northern Nigeria.
The agreement calls for Al Jazeera documentaries to be dubbed into Hausa and broadcast to “Arewa24’s 40+ million viewers in Northern Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon via a new Distribution Agreement” between the two companies.
The distribution agreement will make Al Jazeera’s English language programs available on AREWA24’s Free-to-Air Satellite channel, as well as the region’s major PayTV services, including DStv, StarTimes, CANAL+, and TSTV, as well as AREWA24’s global streaming service, “AREWA24 On Demand.”
“We’re very pleased with this agreement because it makes Al Jazeera English’s content available to new audiences in a large part of Africa in their own language,” said Ramzan Alnoimi, acting Executive Director of Al Jazeera’s Global Brand and Communication Division.
“In the future, we hope to expand the distribution of Al Jazeera content dubbed in other languages.”
“The Al Jazeera brand and its outstanding programming will be very well received by AREWA24’s Northern Nigerian and West African audiences,” said AREWA24 CEO Jacob Arback.”
“We are thrilled to be the first television network to broadcast Al Jazeera’s high-quality programs in Hausa, a language spoken by over 90 million people in Nigeria and West Africa.”
He stated that AREWA24 and its production arm, AREWA24 Productions, were established in 2014 to fill a gap in the market for authentic, locally produced, and high-quality Hausa language entertainment and lifestyle programming.
He said: “The AREWA24 television channel reaches more than 40 million Hausa speakers in Nigeria and West Africa and the Kano and Lagos-based Company is now among the leading Pan-African television, production, content-distribution and media companies.”
