27 June 2023 – AREWA24, the leading Hausa language family entertainment and lifestyle television channel and production studio in Nigeria and West Africa, announces the launch of its inaugural Focus on Mental Health and Wellness Month.
Throughout the month of July, AREWA24 will devote major segments of its daily breakfast show, “Gari Ya Waye,” and its women’s show, “Mata A Yau” to a series of in-depth discussions and interviews with some of the top doctors, therapists and other health experts on issues of mental health and wellness in Northern Nigeria. Although experts agree that mental health is an integral part of good health and well-being, it has been neglected in Nigeria and Northern Nigeria.
According to the Association of Psychiatrists in Nigeria (APN), more than 60 million Nigerians are suffering from some form of mental illness, but only 10 percent are able to access appropriate care. APN President Taiwo Obindo explains that the gap in treatment is a result of various factors, including a lack of knowledge which leaves people with insufficient information about the causes of mental illness and the ability to identify and seek appropriate treatment.
Despite the prevalence of mental illness in the country, according to the Nigerian Medical Association, there are only 350 psychiatrists currently available to serve a Nigerian population of some 220 million people. It is estimated that at least one out of every four Nigerians are living with some sort or mental illness.
“People do not have an understanding about mental health,” says Nigerian mental health expert, Aisha Bubah. “So mental health gets attributed to so many cultural beliefs, superstitious beliefs, and evil. And the image of mental health people have is always about the most extreme cases.”
AREWA24 is working to fill this glaring knowledge gap by first providing basic information and awareness about mental health, mental illness and mental wellness. The goal of the AREWA24 Mental Health and Wellness campaign is to close the information gap by providing credible information and to eliminate the stigmatism surrounding issues of mental health. AREWA24 has brought together a group of psychiatrists, therapists, and subject matter experts who will also discuss how we can all develop ways to nurture positive mental wellness, both individually and with our families. This includes services ranging from assessment, diagnosis, treatment, and counseling – all dedicated to maintaining and restoring the mental well-being of Northern Nigerians.
“At AREWA24, we’re committed to using our broadly distributed, popular and trusted entertainment platform to serve our Northern Nigerian communities with positive campaigns such as our upcoming “Focus on Mental Health and Wellness Month,” said Aisha Lawal, Executive Producer of AREWA24’s Studio Productions. “We believe it’s our corporate and social responsibility to go beyond just entertaining our viewers. That’s why we want to raise awareness around critically important issues in our communities such as mental health. We want to help educate and inform our sons and daughters, help prepare them for a better future, and try to address some of the root causes of poverty to which poor mental health is a major contributor.”
ABOUT AREWA24 (https://arewa24.com/company-overview/): AREWA24 and its production arm, AREWA24 Productions, was launched in 2014 to fill a glaring void of authentic, locally-produced and high-quality Hausa language entertainment and lifestyle programming that reflects pride in Northern Nigerian life, culture, music, film, art, cooking, and sports. Today, AREWA24 reaches 40+ million Hausa speakers in Nigeria and West Africa through its Eutelsat satellite free-to-air broadcast, on the StarTimes payTV bouquet (channel#138) the two Multichoice payTV platforms, DStv (channel #261) and GOtv (channel #136), the payTV and on the Canal+ payTV service (channel #285) in Niger, Chad and Cameroun. AREWA24 benefits from active audience engagement across its digital platforms at AREWA24.com, facebook.com/AREWA24, and Instagram.com/AREWA24channel. AREWA24 also operates a global streaming service, AREWA24 On Demand in partnership with Vimeo.
To subscribe to the global streaming service, AREWA24 ON DEMAND, go to http://tv.arewa24.com or download the app from the IOS App Store, Google Play, Apple TV, Roku Channel Store, and Amazon Fire TV.
For additional information please contact: info@arewa24.com
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Arewa24’s new streaming service targets 8 million plus Hausa-speaking diaspora – just US$4.99 a month
Northern Nigerian Hausa-language channel Arewa24 is launching Arewa24On Demand, a new global subscription video-on-demand and OTT streaming service. Russell Southwood spoke to Arewa24 CEO Jacob Arback about why it launched the service and what is planned.
The idea for launching a VoD and OTT streaming service has been in Arewa24’s strategic roadmap for a long-time: Our goal was to unite Hausa speakers on a TV platform in the north, then expand to the rest of Nigeria, then out to the Hausa diaspora. We were waiting to get a critical mass of library content with the quality standards needed to compete internationally.”
Arback describes the new service as “Netflix for Hausa content”, which means that it has all the genres of that global service, including drama, music, sports and so on. There will be no advertising and users will get unlimited access for US$4.99 a month and US$48 a year.
Launched at the end of October, it will be available from Arewa24’s website and there are iOS and Android apps available. Google Play shows that there have already been 500,000+ downloads of the app. It will also be available on Roku and Amazon Prime and over time through several other platforms.
“The strategy is to upload the content free on YouTube with a transition message saying that users will need to move over to the new channels by 21st November. We want to start with early adopter fans in Saudi Arabia, Sudan, the USA and Europe.” He sees the service as a way of avoiding having an expensive satellite service to reach these diaspora fans.
Arewa24 is working closely with independent producers in the north that Arback says has “wonderful writers and storytellers. All they need is capital, says Arback, to grow like Nollywood in the south of the country:”We are working with a couple of producers, producing special features where they talk about their films.”
Its content strategy is very much focused around original scripted drama produced by the channel. Titles include thriller 90 Days and popular long-running drama Dadin Kowa, the channel’s first sitcom produced through an independent production house:”We will script another original drama next year. Hausa speakers love dramas. They very hyper-local but with high production values.”
In addition, there will be all the other content on the channel including: its hip-hop programmes, its breakfast and cooking shows, its kids content and sports (including round-ups of the EPL and big leagues from London, dubbed into Hausa). There will also be a shorts section including animation, comedy, skits and short films:”We have one show where the social media team go out and ask people stupid questions.”
How much will the new service be affected by connectivity challenges?:”The service is first and foremost targeting Hausa speakers outside Nigeria who want culturally appropriate entertainment. We’re a very specific niche channel for a particular diaspora community: a rough estimate indicates there are 8-10 million of them with the largest communities in Saudi Arabia and Sudan. It will be available in Northern Nigeria and will have a feature that adjusts to the speed of the connection available.”
How many subscribers does he think it will have in 2-3 years time?:”I couldn’t tell you. We have 50 million YouTube viewers but we’re taking a big leap investing in this. We need to deliver fresh content every day, every week. We want to produce 11-12 shows every day and it makes sense to have another distribution channel to let others see it.”
What level of investment has gone into it?:”For our channel, it’s a big investment but in a global context, it’s probably quite reasonable.” It wanted to get in before someone got in ahead of them:”It all starts with content. We probably have 45,000 hours. Only half will go on the app as the later work was of higher quality.”
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AREWA24 makes debut on StarTimes
Pay TV provider, StarTimes Nigeria have announced the listing of Hausa language channel AREWA24, on its platform, in a bid to meet the growing demands of its Hausa subscribers.
According to the Brand and Marketing Director at StarTimes, Qasim Elegbede, “the demand for more Hausa language channels among our subscribers especially in the North rose significantly in the last year.
As a listening organization, we have given our Hausa subscribers exactly what they asked for, more entertainment.”
Also commenting on the development, the Head of Commercial Operations for AREWA24, Celestine Umeibe, noted that “The partnership between AREWA24 and StarTimes is indeed a welcomed development. Now more Hausa speakers across Northern Nigeria and the rest of the country have access to a premium, locally relevant entertainment and lifestyle channel that reflects the diversity of the North
and pride in culture.”
He added that “Consumer brand advertisers and their agencies can now reach deeper into their target audiences by having AREWA24 now distributed across all packages on StarTimes platform.”
Arewa 24 showcases entertainment, cultural and religious content televised in Hausa language and airs on channel 138 on StarTimes platform. It will be recalled that in December 2017, StarTimes announced the commencement of broadcast in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital in an aggressive expansion drive geared towards fulfilling its promise to deliver affordable entertainment to every Nigerian home. -
AREWA24 celebrates its sixth anniversary with a slate of new shows
AREWA24, the leading Hausa language entertainment and lifestyle television channel and production studio in Nigeria and West Africa, announces a major slate of new and exciting shows to coincide with the company’s sixth anniversary.
