A Ghanaian movie producer who doubles as a director, Ola Michael has stated categorically that Ghanaian movies cannot survive on streaming platforms.
Ola Michael believes that the high cost of data will not allow Ghanaians to patronize their works.
Ola has said that no Ghanaian will like to watch an hour of Ghanaian film due to the cost of data they will be using to watch the movie online.
“If I, as a producer, want to get my film on a streaming platform, let’s say on YouTube, how many Ghanaians are going to watch that film, especially if it’s in 1 hour? Because people will be thinking about how much data they’re going to spend watching this movie,” he said.
He has advised his colleague producers not to compete with Nigerians, so instead of uploading an hour movie, they should be uploading it bit by bit.
“That is why we advise those who are doing YouTube things to break it down to a maximum of ten minutes at least so that they will be enticed to watch it. But if you’re doing a feature like the Nigerians are doing on YouTube, it’s not going to work for you unless you are lucky for Ghanaians outside to also get to know of it and watch it. So they are the ones that are helping with the streaming for us now,” he added.