Kwese-iflix has partnered media company, BusTop TV in coming up with a comedy series, Comic Tick, on the Kwe-iflix platform. Bustop TV has already aired the first season. with 10 episodes, of the comedy series Comic Tick without Kwese-iflix’s patronage. But now Kwese-iflix is chipping in by funding the production of the second season. Bustop TV founder, Luckie Aaroni said;
Comic Tick is commissioned work by Kwese iflix. They asked if we could create content targeting youths for their platform as they believe that comedy is one of the most watched content by Zimbabweans online. We agreed and came up with the concept of Comic Tick
This partnership signifies Kwese-iflix’s first gesture of wanting to promote the development, production, and distribution of local content. Since its inception, Kwese had always promised that it will start to produce local content but until the days following Kwese TV’s demise they there almost silent about the issue. At one point they even launched Kwese Vice (Kwese in partnership with Vice Media) to produce local content for not only South Africa and Zimbabwe but the whole of Africa where they have a presence. But it never amounted to anything significant.
Local content is usually good because its cheaper and it resonates with the local market. The like’s of Bustop TV are already household names such that people will likely be interested to use Kwese-iflix to watch its shows. I don’t deny that western or foreign content is at most, more compelling than our own local content but with adequate resources, Zim could have its own Zollywood just like the Nigerians have their booming Nollywood. Its only with companies like Econet Media (Kwese-iflix’s parent company), that adequate resources can be made available for the local film industry to reach such heights.
In commisioning Comedy Tick, Kwese-iflix follows in the footsteps of streaming and Video-on-demand platforms like Netflix. Netflix is not only commisioning content but it now has movie studios of its own. Econet Media’s recently launched Kwese Studios could spearhead such an initiative to achieve such feats for Kwese-iflix, where will see the company operation movie studios with all the filmmaking resources.
