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| Taye Ige, Chairman/CEO of HS Media Group |
Chairman/CEO of HS Media Group, Taye Ige, has declared the
readiness of his media production outfit to host and produce big media
entertainment events such as The voice Nigeria and the Coke Studio in Nigeria.
While commenting on his mega studio projects which industry
experts have described as the largest in Africa, Taye Ige, in an interview
published by THISDAY Newspaper said “HS Media Group is set to start a
revolution in television production in Nigeria soon. He said the same kind of
revolution experienced when the mobile telephone was launched in 2001 would be
the same thing for television production when digitization is launched in
Nigeria.
According to the veteran sports marketer, the HS Media Complex is a television
studio/production complex, situated at the heart of Ikeja, the capital of Lagos
State, some 20 minutes from the Murtala Mohammed International Airport and
standing on just a little over two acres of land.
“There
are five television production studios in the complex, the largest being 900
square-metre adjoined by two others which are 175 square metres each, and then
there are two other ones that we call presentation studios, and they are 55
square metre each. So, whether the 900 square-metre studio qualifies as the
biggest in Africa is what I do not know.
Ige
said he” conceived the idea of an extra-large studio from a project I was
involved in years ago with Guinness. They had what was called “Guinness the
Match”, that involved simulation of a football pitch right inside a television
studio. We looked everywhere from Lagos to Ogun, even as far as Ibadan and Osun
State, and we could not find a suitable studio, until we had to settle for what
was the biggest then, which is the LTV 8 studio.
With
that experience at the back of his mind, when the opportunity came to build a
studio of his own, “I thought, the only thing one can bring into the market
that will make HS Media stand out is that size. I actually wanted a 1200 or
1300 square metre size, but superior reasoning around me thought otherwise, and
said that it would be difficult to maintain good occupancy all year round and
that we would be lucky to even gross 20% occupancy with that volume. We were
told that we could do something smaller but still big enough to accommodate the
most ambitious of productions and equipped with modern day gadgetry; and create
illusion of an even bigger space. For instance, with cameras fixed with
appropriate zoom lenses, you can actually create a 1,800sq.m space in a 900
square environment. But you know, money is the name of the game. For instance,
some of those lenses are more expensive than the cameras themselves. So, that
was why we were able to conclude at 900 square metre and create two other
studios of 175 square-metre each.
He
said the HS Media mega studio project will restore Nigeria’s pride and save the
nation the embarrassment it has suffered in recent times when projects like big
time reality shows that were supposed to be hosted and produced in Nigeria such
as The Voice Nigeria and others were taken to Johannesburg, South Africa.
He
said Coke Studio, despite the fact that it was dominated by Nigeria’ musical
stars was taken to Nairobi, Kenya, all because of facilities. “The main reason
cited by production houses for taking these shows abroad is lack of the
requisite facilities and expertise. The facilities needed are the kind of
things we are trying to provide here at HS Media Studios. For instance, when
fully completed, you can build any reality show and house the inmates in our
Studio One. And you know when digitization comes, that is when the boom will
come from production, and that is what we are positioning for.
Taye
Ige revealed that with the studios are in various stages of completion and the completed
ones are busy 24/7. “First, we have our programmes. We have HotSports, which
has run for close to two decades, and it is still running. We are producing it
every week. We have ‘UAC Unscripted’, the wave-making celebrity family game
show, sponsored by Nigeria’s biggest indigenous conglomerate, UACN Plc. We have
our radio programmes and we have audio booths supporting the completed studio. According
to him, “far more importantly is that every weekend, from Friday to Sunday, we
are locked down on StarTimes. We produce six live matches every weekend, for
StarTimes. Matches of the Bundesliga, i.e the German League, the Italian Serie
A, the French League 1 and matches of the Russia 2018 European World Cup Qualifiers.
These matches are produced live on World Football Channel on StarTimes.
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