We can’t rely on Netflix! Ghana should own a streaming network by now - Bill Asamoah

This, to him, is because one of the most daunting obstacles facing the movie industry at the moment is how they can make their outputs easily available to movie lovers.

“One of the challenges that we are having now is how to get the final product to the consumer, which is by way of getting a particular streaming network.”

Although there are some existing distributing outlets that may be willing to help promote Ghanaian movies, the actor strongly believes that because they are not on our shores, it makes it very difficult for them to accessed.

“We cannot look at Netflix alone, we cannot look at YouTube and then we cannot look at some of the other networks that are well established. The reason is that, it’s outside. It’s being controlled by somebody who you don’t even have access to.”

He further pointed out that, YouTube is not as lucrative a distribution outlet as many people make it seems, because of what he perceives to be a lack of transparency.

“You sit here and they will go like, go on YouTube; upload your movies and all that. Whatever that YouTube generates for you, whether you like that or not, you take it.

According to the actor, it’s high time the Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA) joined forces with the central government to provide such a platform.

“But if we should have GTA coming to support us, in collaboration with the government and they get us one particular network that we can wholly own as Ghanaian, that we have access to, the head-office is here in Ghana, you go there, whatever you need, you talk to them. I think that is where we should be by now.”

His comments come after movie director and producer, Emmanuel Sarpong, said his movie, Galamsey: Enemies Are Not God has been accepted by Netflix.

Since media and digital technologies advanced to make the pirating of digital products extremely easy, Ghana’s movie industry has witnessed a slump in the production of new movies. The already dire situation was worsened when the COVID-19 Pandemic broke out.

This forced many actors to diversify into TV and radio presenting, music production among other businesses.

However, in recent times, some movie producers have started filming in a bid to revive and sustain one of the avenues that employ a lot of youth in the country.