Nigerian Company Partners With Bang Showbiz

Publisher, NET Newspapers, Ayeni Adekunle and pop icon, 2Face Idibia

Nigeria's leading news organizations, Nigerian Entertainment Today has announced a major international partnership with popular news agency, Bang Showbiz.

The NET founder Ayeni Adekunle, who signed the deal with the Bang’s global marketing director, Masato Kamo on June 3, says the agreement, which will see both organizations exchange content, is a move that will expose Nigerian and African celebrities to a global audience, through Bang’s far reaching wire.

‘We’ve been experimenting with Bang, since they first contacted us many months back’, Ayeni says. ‘It started with them giving us their great content for our website thenet.ng. And after seeing the opportunities, I requested for a face-to-face meeting, which happened in London, last month.

‘Our offer was simple: we’d love to have all the great content from Hollywood, Bollywood, the UK and elsewhere. But we’d also love for the world to have access, through Bang’s network, to the works and lifestyles of great African celebs like D’Banj, 2face Idibia, Sarkodie, Omotola, Genevieve, Wizkid and others’.

The partnership means that The NET will now exclusively deliver daily, on all its platforms, global entertainment news courtesy Bang, to its millions of readers within and outside the continent; while Bang will deliver rich African news content supplied by The NET, to its subscribers in the UK, America and Asia.

‘BANG sees this as a tremendous opportunity to work with a leading African media company to develop a mutually beneficial content distribution channel’, says founder Rick Sky.

‘I always dreamed of getting a foothold in Africa. The continent is a wonderful marketing opportunity and I am convinced it is a great market for the very best entertainment news…’

BANG Global Marketing Director Masato Kamo added: ‘Nigeria has the highest distribution of Internet usage per capital in Africa and NET is an ideal partner positioned in a prestigious niche. We look forward to working together at both representing and expanding the coverage of African celebrities in our global news network.’

Founded in 1997 by Rick Sky, a former entertainment editor with The SUN, Daily Mirror and Daily STAR, Bang is a worldwide leader in entertainment news; supplying several organizations across the globe with breaking news in several languages. Bang currently reaches over 400 unique users every month.

The NET was founded in 2009 by former Encomium, The Punch and THISDAY journalist Ayeni Adekunle, ‘as a child of necessity’ to deliver accurate, reliable and up-to-the-minute entertainment news from Nigeria, to audiences wherever they are. NET is currently available on mobile, web and print, with a TV news service scheduled to launch later in 2013.

This is NET’s second content partnership in 2013. Earlier in February, the company announced a deal with Star Music – Nigeria’s premiere mobile music app.