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Thursday, 20 November, 2008 04:33 pm
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| How Entertained are We at 48 |
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| Written by Abraham Adegoke | ||||||
| Friday, 03 October 2008 | ||||||
     The advent of radio in 1932 signalled the beginning of entertaining a larger audience simultaenously as opposed to the limited village audience that held sway beforehand. All thanks to our colonial masters, we had the first feel of radio broadcast later that year when the British Broadcast Corporation did a test run of their service in the country. Since then, various ways of entertainment has evolved or better still, the earlier forms of entertainment have been embellished to give them wider acceptance. Another major event in the entertainment industry in Naija was the advent of television by the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo in 1959. Television brought with it a new turn of events. First was the magic that made boxes speak human voices then came the ones that not only speak voices but also show faces. Although we could not boast of having too many units of those devices, they still served their purpose. I know y'all don't want to remember those times when a radio set plus a lucky {former} employee to a white man served an entire community of about 200 persons...it worked still. With the effectiveness of these broadcast media, the acceptance grew and there was a growing need for the media houses to create more programmes for the benefit of theri ever growing audience. Also, the media houses all grew in number especially with the creation of more states. You people that are older than myself would remember what followed the increase in the number of TV stations in the country...several TV series began airing on the stations some of which you can still recall today. Also, local musicians were encouraged by the number of persons the Radio especially was delivering at their feet and they created what we still term as the best form of music to ever come out of naija. Although what was available then was the miserly one colour television i.e Black and White, it was still enjoyed by people of those times...of course, they had no choice but to. Another major event in the entertainment industry here in Naija was the coming of the cinema's. We 'locals' then started getting to see foreign movies especially those from Asia that had some real funny titles y'all should still remember...if you don't, ask those who do. Sometime in the 80's, the first home video was produced in Naija and since then, there has been no stopping the movie sector of the entertainment industry. In fact, about thirty movies are released into the market on a weekly basis in present day naija. Also, the movie has, until recently, all but killed cinema busines in the country...thanksto some individuals who won't let that happen. In the early 90's, the broadcast industry was deregulated giving private investors the opportunity to be part of the business. Consequently, there were more opportunities for the development of entertainment in the country. Since then, entertainment in Naija has grown in leap and bounds. In case you don't know before, the Nigerian Movie Industry is now ranked third in the whole wide world behind America's Hollywood and India's Bollywood. That sure is a landmank for us all. Meanwhile, as the movie industry was making its steady progress, the music arm of our entertainment industry was...how do I put it...gathering momentum to launch an assualt on world music. With the television and radio at our disposal, we got really exposed to the foreign way of doing music and being the nigerians that we are, we believed and still believe we can do foreign music better than the foreigners. The result is there for us to see. We have had more music artistes in the past decade and half than we've had in the previous three decades put together. Some decades ago too, the music of the whites were what we listened to on our streets and almost everywhere else. Today, one can play music from nigerians for 24 hours without repeating anyone...that shows how far we've come. There is hardly any awards on the continent of africa in the entertainment scene that nigerians would not be part of. Surprisingly, though, we have not arrived yet. The number of upcoming practitioners in the entertainment industry would attest to that. Another sector that we shouldn't over-look in the entertainment industry is the stand-up comedy business. It has, over the years, evolved from a two-five man's business to a multi-million nairaindustry with thousands of practitioners. As we look back at the 48 years of our independence it is imperative that we salute the courage of those who have been part of our entertainment industry. At least to encourage them to take a step further from conquering Africa to being a force to reckon with globally in the real sense of the word...God bless Naija  Quote this article on your site | Views: 251 | Print | E-mail
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