Gary Alfonso, chief operating officer of the CNBC Africa, the latest derivative of the CNBC global brand, was at the Alumni Session of the School of Media and Communications (SMC), Pan African University, Lagos, after which he spoke to MARCEL MBAMALU on the expanding opportunities in media and Internet businesses in Africa. Excerpts:

CNBC is viewed as a business programme in some local television stations in Africa, including Nigeria. How do you really make your money?

We don't earn revenue from subscriptions anywhere in Africa. CNBC Africa is a free-to-air channel; it is free to any participant, any platform but obviously subject to our approval. So, we form alliances with distributors everywhere in Africa. We form alliances with companies like AIT, in Nigeria; we form alliances with Net2 TV in Ghana. We have formed alliances with Mobi TV in Zambia; we have formed alliances with DSTV across Africa; and primarily in southern Africa. We are on the Multi-choice decoders. But in sub Saharan Africa, we are primarily on the VIVID decoder but, you know as Mutichoice is increasing their capacity, we will probably be on there in the next quarter or the end of quarter one in 2009.

So, we, as a model, distribute our signals free-to-air; we do not charge any subscriptions. So we do not charge any channel or any company that puts CNBC Africa on its distribution network any money.

What we do is leverage that audience as an attraction for advertisers. So, we are purely reliant on advertising, and on sponsorship of TV programmes.

We create excellent product on air that sponsors want to associate with; we create opportunities and platforms for financial institutions to share knowledge, for financial institutions to show their expertise with the rest of the continent in a business environment and international investors, visiting Africa. So, that is the basis of our revenue model. It's partnerships of financial institutions but also advertising and sponsorship of TV programmes.

I guess you are less than two years old in Africa and I keep wondering how you cope with your role as COO?

We launched on June 1, 2007. So, we are effectively 18 months old and we have about 20 per cent of cash flow breakeven - which is phenomenal in the world of television production.

So we will be profitable within the first quarter, or second quarter of 2009, and to breakeven as a television channel in two years, I think, will be a world record. Even though we launched on the first of June 2007, CNBC has been a global brand for decades and, as part of CNBC universal (CNBC in the US and CNBC in Europe put our programme 24 hours a day. So, CNBC Africa is the latest derivative of the global CNBC brand.

What we do from Johannesburg is that we basically delve into the international field and start reporting on African markets. Internationally, they sometimes take hints from us in Johannesburg; they (CNBC organs) take reports and they want to know what's happening in Kenya, what's happening in Nigeria and South Africa, as the three largest markets in Africa.

In that triangle, we report to the world about Africa's growth, its investment opportunities and advertise the continent as a place that will probably not be as badly affected by the global slowdown as the rest of the globe.

So, investors are looking at Africa. Banks are coming here, and that's the reason the CNBC Africa was launched.

As far as my role as the chief operating officer is concerned, I'm in charge of operations across Africa. I visit Nigeria once a month; I visit Kenya once a month, am in South Africa for most of the month. But I ensure that there are opportunities created for revenue growth, I make sure that our cost are maintained, I make sure that the staff remain motivated and that we create excellent programming.

So, the quality of the content is very much my job because quality of content helps you sell advertising, and advertising helps you create revenue, which obviously, once again, is a circle that helps you create better programming. The more revenue you make, the better programme you can make as well.

Are you thinking of creating a bureau in West Africa and probably use Nigeria and its enormous viewing population as a launch pad?

Yes. Nigeria was very much part of our strategy to launch CNBC Africa in West Africa. In Ghana, for instance, we will certainly look at a presence but we tag that presence to economic growth in GDP in countries. So, there is a point of inflection, where you know that it's time to invest, and that's when GDP, Foreign Direct Investment and also the general National Income per capita is at a certain percentage. So, it's a science; it's not that you decide today and you start somewhere in a country.

Does that suggest that Nigeria is not yet conducive for CNBC Africa?

Well, it is, and that's why we basically established two bureaus -one in Lagos and one in Abuja, and the next one will be in Ghana.

Cameroun is already very actively pursuing it. We have already held constructive discussions with the media players there to establish CNBC Africa in that market.

We are also forming partnerships with local investors with people that want to invest in that local media in those territories and to help grow CNBC Africa's presence in those markets.  Continued    Source: www.ngrguardiannews.com