AREWA24, the leading Hausa language family entertainment and lifestyle television channel and production studio in Nigeria and West Africa, announces the launch of its new Original Drama and Film Division.  The new company production division will develop, script and produce a slate of new original drama series and feature films, telling authentic African stories from Northern Nigeria and West Africa in both the Hausa language and in core English.

AREWA24’s production studios already produce and broadcast the two most popular and highest rated Hausa language drama series in Northern Nigeria and West Africa, “Dadin Kowa” which is in it’s 25^th season, and the channel’s runaway hit political thriller, “Kwana Casa’in” (“90 Days”), which just concluded production on Season-7.   Several new original drama series are currently in development and the company will be debuting its first originally-produced premier feature film in Q4 2022.

“AREWA24” has been developing some of the finest Nigerian writers, producers, directors, editors and actors since the channel launched eight years ago,” says Jacob Arback, AREWA24’s CEO.  “We are now positioned to be a major Pan African producer of scripted, authentic African content – – for Nigeria, for Africa and for viewers in the West who are becoming more and more exposed to the unique and compelling stories being told in high-quality dramas and films from the Continent.”

Leading the new Original Drama and Film Division is Evans Ejioju, an experienced and talented industry veteran who has been the executive producer of Kwana Casa’in since its first season. Salisu Balabare, the current director of Kwana Casa’in and longtime director of the Dadin Kowa drama series, will head up creative direction for the new division.  Bob Reid, a well-known Emmy-award winning executive producer with Discovery Networks and the former EVP and Programming Executive at The Africa Channel in the U.S., is on board as a production consultant and executive producer of AREWA24’s original drama and film productions.

With the creation of this new Original Drama and Film Division, AREWA24 will leverage its own production resources and expertise, as well as look to partner with top creative talent from throughout the world, and with the major global streaming services, to develop and produce an expanding slate of scripted narrative content.

“Our goal is not just to create ever more popular and successful dramas for our core Hausa-speaking audiences,” says Arback. “Some of what we produce might not air first on AREWA24.  Going forward, we plan to create a slate of content that appeals to viewers throughout Africa and the rest of the world. The new production division will enable us to tailor content to suit those broader targeted audiences. To do that, we plan to produce authentic African content in English as well as in Hausa and take on more provocative subject matter across a wide range of program genres.”

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 #101), the payTV platform TSTV (#361) 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