Ohene Media Pays Royalties To Musicians

Ruff N Smooth

Ohene Media (OM) through its YouTube channel fiestaGH has paid royalties to over 30 Ghanaian musicians.

The payment, the second in series is an accumulation of monies made from YouTube over the last three months.

The artistes include Daddy Lumba, Ernest Opoku,  Chupa Chops, Appiah, Atumpan, Obaa Pa Christy, Brother Philip, Kodi And Aj, Keche, Ruff N Smooth, Sonnie Badu, Becca, OJ, Cecilia Marfo, Cindy Thompson, Stay J, Samini, Stonebwoy, Castro, R2Bees, Okyeame Kwame, Guru, Sherifa Gunu, Kaakie, Elder Mireku, Vine Praise, 4×4, Praye, Bisa and  Diana Hamilton Antwi,

Five other channels namely Official Sarkodie, Official El, Gh Kings, Eazzyfirstlady, Xtralarge, One Mic have also received monies for their content on YouTube.

Explaining the process in Accra last Monday, the Chief Executive Officer of Ohene Media, Abraham Ohene Djan said last year, his outfit signed a contract with Google under the Google Premium YouTube Partnership to help monetize Ghanaian content on YouTube.

Subsequently, OM was given a platform on YouTube to upload videos from Ghana with the idea of attracting adverts which would in turn generate revenue for the artistes or owners of the content.

OM was also given a platform to create channels for individuals so they can also monetize and attract adverts.

 
He explained that contrary to what most people perceived, much revenue was not generated through the number of 'views' but rather the number of times people clicked on adverts on a particular video.

He said though there were issues at the initial stages on how revenue would be disbursed, things have been sorted out and this was the second time monies were being given out.

'Now we are able to track the use of Ghanaian content on YouTube, on behalf of Ghanaian musicians, and make money from it as well, previously people outside Ghana uploaded Ghanaian content on YouTube and revenues never got to the content owners, monies which were lost outside of the country are now being diverted to Ghana,' he said.

He expressed gratitude to Mr. Kafu Kofi Tsikata, a senior communications officer at the World Bank Ghana Office, who linked him up with Google Ghana, for his immense contribution towards the realization of the programme and for his continued dedication to the promotion of creative industries over the past decade.