As the Netflix fever wanes, allow me go retrospective as to why it’s launching was well received with too much fanfare and what it dictates for the future of television in Uganda. Years before I could write this, that is long ago. We fed on linear television. Homes with TVs were like havens where information conveyed and relayed to an audience, issues at hand were discussed there given the tonne of information availed by TV.
We watched boring generation dramas, soccer, news bulletins, the Mexican soap operas everything both local and foreign that saw their way into our living rooms. Years passed, we aged, we became teenagers and by that time, MTV, Channel O, Kiss, E! mattered the most. We became the most hippy given the TV culture but that was later to die as years progressed.
“TV never finds a slot in my somewhat busy life”
Fast forward to today. I find today’s me fighting my former self. Whether the 9-5 schedule is to blame? But it’s pretty damn right that TV never finds a slot in my somewhat busy life. Unlike the prior years. The workaholics can concur with me. So after a long day’s work, our tired selves are left with no choice but to watch TV at our convenience without anyone dictating our choosing. It is after such observations that I assert how streaming is the future. Call it streaming video on demand (VOD) and that’s why Apps like YouTube, Vimeo and now Netflix eat a lunch chuck of my data bills dethroning behemoth, Facebook in the process.
Here you’ll find all sorts of creatives like gaming vloggers, beauty vloggers, a recap on what took place over at our brothers transmitting over linear, live streams, movies, tech and it’s an expansive world whose corners I cannot all reach. The only surprising bit is convenience, which is at your disposal every time you feel like. The intuitive apps, value added services, the User Expreince (UX) and a lot more are all attractions here. Something that’s so much of a miracle from our Pay TV operators. These feed us with content of their choosing they deem suitable for us, a boring selection of TV stations some of which we don’t watch but must pay for
On the contrary this does not call for the death of TV as we know it. Streaming (at least within Ugandan boundaries) hasn’t tackled issues like live soccer action which most Ugandans love, the exorbitant data prices which remain out of reach for many Ugandans, limited super fast Internet coverage, informal banking tendencies and other issues have to be addressed for streaming to take off. For now, it remains for the elite, who have somehow addressed some of the said demerits.
