Nollywood: The Audience as Merchandise

Abstract

Preamble

A few prefatory remarks are in order:

1. The audience is supreme - in two major regards. The audience that determines to what gratification to put the film; and the nature of the film to be so used. Whatever the aggregate of gratifications, entertainment is paramount and it is the audience, NOT the content provider, that does determine the nature of the entertainment'. Hitchcock is therefore right in his remark: I will go from experimentation to experimentation in my film if the audience will let me'.¹

2. Film is one of those commodities that must be consumed immediately. The painter, the sculptor, the musician, the writer etc. could put away their work for a future generation. The filmmaker cannot. The film, once made, must be consumed here and now: the film audience exists in the continuous present tense-like the film image itself.

3. Free TV through its programmes which it provides freely to its audience, sells the audience to sponsors. On the other hand, pay TV sells its programmes to the audience - and sells the audience to sponsors. The filmmaker is something of a cross between free TV and pay TV; depending, of course, on his sources of funding. Where he is his own sponsor or has to pay back his sponsor, he sells entertainment directly to the audience. However, where the funding is a grant (not to be paid back) he may/may not sell entertainment to his audience: but sell the

audience to the sponsor he must. Against the background of the foregoing, in the subsequent sections, I intend to look at...