Mark Angel Comedy featuring six-year-old Emmanuella
Samuel, Nigeria's Channels Television and IbakaTV/
Nollywood have emerged winners at the inaugural Sub-
Saharan African (SSA) YouTube Awards, an official said on
Sunday.*
According to Ms Susan Wojcicki, the Chief Executive Officer
(CEO) of YouTube, the SSA YouTube Award was Google's
way of celebrating African creators.
She said "the YouTube Awards celebrates the talent and
creativity of YouTube community while serving as platform
that shares Africa's creativity with the rest of the world.
"By holding our first-ever YouTube Africa Awards, we hope to
celebrate incredible achievements like Olympic medalist
Julius Yego show, while also demonstrating our long-term
commitment to the continent," Wojcicki said.
She said YouTube Awards were handed out to 25 creators
across 23 categories and nominees were chosen based on
subscriber numbers.
She added that users had to have a minimum of 50,000
subscribers to qualify and must be based and currently
residing in one of eight launched countries in SSA.
The YouTube boss said that the top non-broadcaster
channels were picked from each launched country, describing
a launched country as one in which monetisation had been
enabled as it was not enabled in all countries globally.
Wojcicki listed the eight launched countries in SSA as
Tanzania, Ghana, Uganda, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Kenya,
Nigeria, and Senegal, adding that over 70 channels from
launched SSA countries had reached over 100,000
subscribers.
Mr Teju Ajani of YouTube Partnerships, SSA, said YouTube
was about people having opportunities to express
themselves.
He said "creators across Africa are using YouTube to find
their voice, connect with audiences around the world and
build channels while earning revenue from it.
"The number of hours of video content being uploaded in
Africa has doubled in the past two years and the audience
has grown with it.
"Watch time on mobile phones is growing 120 per cent year
over year," he said.
He added that creators like Hakima Raymond who taught
himself to conduct an orchestra using YouTube videos had
gained international fame on the show "An African City."
Ajani said that the show, which recently hit international
headlines for its portrayal of women in Accra, Ghana, was an
example of the talent that reside in Africa and was now
reaching the world through YouTube.
He listed the YouTube content creators to include Nigeria's
Mark Angel Comedy which features six-year-old Emmanuella
Samuel, Nigeria's Channels Television, South African vlogger
Suzelle DIY and South African music channel, Yellow Brick
Cinema.
The full list of winners are Broadcaster; Channels Television,
Comedy; Kansiime Anne, Comic; Ramscomics/Supastrikas,
Education – Retutpro – Photography and Photoshop
Tutorials, Entertainment – NdaniTV, Fitness; Six Pack
Factory, Games; Slushy AJ.
Others are Makeup and Fashion; Kangai Mwiti, Music; Yellow
Brick Cinema, News and politics; Millard Ayo, Nonprofit; Jim
Nduruchi, People and Blogs; Suzelle DIY, Pets and animals;
Earth Touch.
For Top Subscribed Creator category in Uganda was
Kansiime Anne; Ghana; OfficialSarkodie, Kenya; Churchill
Show, Nigeria; Mark Angel Comedy, Senegal; Prince Arts,
South Africa; Yellow Brick Cinema, Tanzania;
DiamondPlatnumz.
Other top Subscribed Creators are in Zimbabwe; Mufti Menk
and Top Subscribed Nollywood Channel; IbakaTV/Nollywood.
Ajani said that for special mention, Yellow Brick Cinema
which recently reached one million subscribers, was awarded
a YouTube Gold Play Button in recognition of the
achievement.*
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