Mary Dover
People all around the world can watch the African sunset or a lion kill, or track leopard spoor when the “CNN of the bush”, Africam.com, launches its first live nature and game viewing footage on the Internet in July.
Wildlife viewing might sound “ho hum” to many South Africans but consider the appeal to the foreign market, where most people have never had an opportunity to visit a game park.
With the convergence of Internet and traditional television not far off, this is revolutionary stuff for the tourism industry and for global viewership.
Imagine The Simpsons deciding what to watch on the box that night – a little virtual game drive perhaps?
A concept conceived and developed in South Africa, Africam was started in 1998 by nature-loving mavericks Graham Wallington and Paul Clifford.
The idea was that video cameras would provide footage directly from the bush, 24 hours a day. These still images, updated every 30 seconds, were immediately available on the Internet.
Last year, media analyst Peter Armitage joined Africam as CEO to develop the business side of the project. Not long after that, broadcaster and newsman Peter Henderson, who envisioned taking the project further to capture live video broadcasts, approached the company.
Henderson put his money where his mouth was by investing about R100-million in building the infrastructure for the new venture.
The team of three camera crews is in place for Africam’s Internet broadcasting phase, to provide the site’s growing audience with premium wildlife footage including commentary from a presenter in a studio environment.
Seventeen cameras are stationed at various game reserves throughout sub- Saharan Africa. At any given time, 10 different live feeds will be sent to the studio, where producers can switch from one setting to another to provide the best viewing.
This means no more fears of missing the Big Five if you are a regular visitor to the site.
“Where a television documentary ends, that is where we will begin. Instead of a polished finished product, we will be able to take one step further and provide the raw footage,” says Armitage.
With Africam.com already voted one of the top 20 favourite sites in the world, it is not short of fans. The first three months of the live broadcast operation will be a trial period and once a viewer profile has been established, Africam will start charging a fee for access to premium footage.
This might be only $5 per month, but (considering that there are 70-million users around the world) if one million people opt to pay the $5 each month, Africam is a lucrative business.
Things move quickly in cyberspace. Africam is already looking further than providing only African content. Shift over, Discovery Channel. Within the next four months, the project will be extended to include other global destinations and the company has already established offices in the United States and Australia.
The Africam site is interactive: viewers can request footage they would like to see, buy wildlife photographs and African products, swop notes on chat sites and even take game ranger courses.
Africam has created a whole new wildlife community linked via the Internet. The hit rate for March reached an all-time high of 38-million, with nearly two million people visiting the site each day. As many as 60% are regulars.
In this case, Africa is the product and not the market, with nearly 80% of the site visitors stemming from abroad. So, you may ask, how will this venture make money?
There are long-term plans to make it profitable via online advertising, products on sale, education courses, safari bookings and, ultimately, pay to view.
From a moral point of view, one has to ask: what next? Do we stage kills to keep the attention of the fickle viewing public? Africam appears to be squeaky clean, with affiliations to various conservation organisations.
“This is crucial to our business,” Armitage says. “Our policy is live, wild and a positive environmental impact.”
It is hard not to be swayed or wooed by such entrepreneurial enthusiasm but at the end of the day, it will be the global community that votes with their fingers to decide whether it is a viable pastime or not.
Visit the site on www.africam.com