I met Jason Corder last week to discuss NorthSouth Media, the Nairobi-based film and creator infrastructure company he founded earlier this year. Somewhere along the way, our meeting became what I like to call a “gangster podcast.”

A gangster podcast is not a highly produced studio recording with multiple cameras, controlled lighting and carefully prepared questions. It is an informal, impromptu, and often audio-only conversation recorded wherever we happen to be, with many of the imperfections of the environment left intact.

Some of my best-performing Pure Digital Passion podcast episodes have been made this way. What matters most is not whether a recording is technically perfect, but whether the conversation contains genuine insight, useful information and enough personality to hold someone’s attention.

Jason understood this immediately. As he put it, the opportunity is to create “human stories made by human hands” that touch human hearts.

That observation became an appropriate starting point for a conversation about African storytelling, creative ownership and the infrastructure required to turn individual productions into enduring intellectual property.

From San Francisco to Nairobi

Jason’s path into African media has been anything but conventional. He grew up in San Francisco, trained as a visual artist and spent many years working as an abstract painter. His relationship with Africa began through extensive travel in the early 1990s, including an overland journey across the Sahara and several months in Kenya.

He later lived in Ethiopia and France before returning to Nairobi. Here, he worked as a painter, musician and lecturer before finding his way into acting through Mali, the popular East African television series.

That acting experience encouraged him to begin writing his own scripts. One became Stay, a comedy-drama about an interracial relationship in Nairobi. Jason initially financed a trailer himself and shot it in his Kilimani apartment.

According to Jason, Nokia subsequently provided approximately KES 8.5 million — around US$100,000 at the time — to turn the idea into a pilot, with Nokia devices incorporated through product placement.

“Overnight, I became a TV producer,” he recalled.

Jason describes Stay as Kenya’s first comedy-drama and a Kalasha Awards winner. He says it was licensed across more than 30 channels, earned over US$100,000 in licensing, was dubbed into French and remains available through Roku more than a decade later.

Coffee With Milk, which he describes as Kenya’s first reality series, followed a similar brand-funded and creator-owned approach.

These productions provided more than proof that Kenyan television could travel. They taught Jason that the most valuable part of a successful production may not be the original production fee. It is the intellectual property that can continue moving across broadcasters, territories, languages and platforms after the cameras stop rolling.

The importance of owning the story

Jason retained ownership of Stay because Nokia’s return came through product placement rather than ownership of the production. That decision would eventually become the foundation of NorthSouth Media.

“I want to build Africa’s largest Intellectual Property (IP) library,” he told me.

This remains the most important part of the NorthSouth thesis. African production companies and creators are frequently commissioned to produce content for broadcasters, development organizations, international platforms or global studios. The work may generate short-term revenue and employment, but the underlying rights — and therefore much of the long-term value — often belong elsewhere.

NorthSouth is attempting to change that equation by developing, producing and retaining its own intellectual property. A show can be produced once and then licensed non-exclusively to different broadcasters, territories and platforms. It can be localized into additional languages and relicensed as agreements expire.

The aim is not simply to produce more programmes. It is to accumulate a library of content that can continue earning over time.

Jason’s earlier experience with an external distributor also shaped this thinking. Although Stay reached multiple markets, he says the relationship did not produce the continuing payments he expected. NorthSouth therefore intends to develop direct sales and distribution capabilities rather than surrendering control of that part of the value chain.

Two studios feeding one owned library

The NorthSouth model is organized around two connected operations: a film studio and a creator studio.

The film studio will produce comedy-dramas, established formats and eventually films at a Nairobi cost base. NorthSouth’s management model assumes that a season costing approximately US$50,000 can generate at least US$150,000 during a licensing cycle across more than 50 broadcasters, with the content relicensed approximately every two years.

These are company estimates rather than independently established unit economics. However, they demonstrate the commercial logic behind the strategy: keep the production cost local and largely one-off, retain ownership, and license the finished property repeatedly across markets.

The Creator Studio is intended to identify and develop creators who already understand how to build audiences. Those creators will produce content for owned channels, work with brands and potentially move into NorthSouth’s longer-form television productions.

This creates a two-way relationship. Social platforms help NorthSouth discover and develop talent, while television gives selected creators more substantial formats through which to expand their careers and audiences.

The model also envisages creators building several sources of income through owned channels, brand partnerships, direct commissions and on-screen roles. NorthSouth intends to provide business, human and AI training while paying people working on its productions around twice local norms and offering residuals.

Those commitments will ultimately need to be demonstrated through contracts and completed productions, but they address an important weakness in the African creative economy. Producing more content is not enough if the people making it cannot build stable careers and retain a continuing stake in its success.

Financing, distribution and localization

NorthSouth wants to control or coordinate the other layers needed to turn production into a scalable business.

The financing strategy combines brand commitments, tax incentives, service revenue and external capital. The distribution operation is intended to develop direct relationships with broadcasters rather than relying entirely on third-party distributors.

NorthSouth also has a signed memorandum of understanding with Aview International for AI-assisted dubbing. The arrangement is intended to make localization available without an upfront payment, with Aview compensated from subsequent licensing revenue.

This is a practical example of AI being used as part of the production and distribution infrastructure rather than as a replacement for human storytelling. People still create and perform the stories. AI helps those stories reach audiences speaking different languages.

Television is not disappearing because digital is growing

One of the most interesting parts of our conversation was our shared skepticism about the assumption that digital growth must automatically result in the disappearance of traditional television.

There is no doubt that mobile video, YouTube, TikTok and streaming services are growing across Africa. However, that does not mean every household can afford to consume long-form programming through mobile data.

The habits of Kenya’s most connected consumers are not necessarily representative of Kenya or the rest of the continent. Once we move beyond more affluent urban audiences, the cost and availability of data still dictate how people consume media.

Free-to-air television (FTA) remains important because the viewer does not have to purchase another bundle for every episode. A programme can also be watched by several people at once, making television a shared rather than an individual experience.

As Jason said of mobile and television, “Both of them are booming. Actually, it’s not mutually exclusive.”

NorthSouth estimates that between 500 and 800 African broadcasters acquire programming to fill their schedules, often while operating under local-content requirements. Its strategy is to begin with free-to-air licensing, build audiences through broadcasting and YouTube, and then take the same properties into additional territories, platforms and languages.

Digital media remains an important part of the model. NorthSouth’s creators will produce vertical content for TikTok and YouTube, while its longer programmes may also be watched through phones and streaming platforms. The distinction is that the company does not want to design its entire business around the assumption that short-form mobile consumption has already replaced everything else.

“Everybody’s chasing the shiny object,” Jason observed. “I’m avoiding the hype train.”

Early signs of traction

NorthSouth has already begun testing individual parts of the model.

Cape Media, which operates TV47, Radio47 and Digital47, has committed to license content at the pricing level underlying NorthSouth’s business model. Jason explained during the podcast that he secured the initial letter of intent within four days after an investor challenged him to demonstrate broadcaster demand.

Aview International has signed its localization agreement, while another organization has given a verbal commitment for a US$75,000 zero-interest loan that would be repaid from revenue.

These developments are at different stages. A licensing commitment must still become delivered programming and recognized revenue, while a verbal loan indication is not the same as secured financing. Nevertheless, they suggest that individual components of the model are beginning to attract interest from broadcasters, localization partners and creative-industry financiers.

A US$1 million plan for the first 24 months

NorthSouth is currently raising US$1 million through a YC post-money SAFE at a US$7 million cap.

The company plans to allocate US$400,000 to its first slate of owned productions, US$300,000 to its Nairobi team and sales operation, US$200,000 to the Creator Studio and US$100,000 to its headquarters, infrastructure and operations.

NorthSouth intends to establish its Nairobi headquarters, shoot the first of five shows and enroll an initial 25 creators during its first six months. It is targeting initial licensing and facilitation revenue during Month 6, operational break-even during Month 10, 50 creators and licensing across 50 broadcasters by Month 24.

From Year 3, the plan is to replicate the model in additional African markets while increasing annual output from approximately 800 episodes towards more than 2,000 as the number of production locations expands.

These are ambitious targets. Producing content, developing creators, closing brand partnerships, selling programmes across broadcasters and localizing them for international markets are substantial operations individually. Bringing them together will require disciplined execution and management depth.

The difference between a projection and an asset

NorthSouth projects revenue rising from US$375,000 in Year 1 to US$43 million in Year 5. It models the potential value of its owned library at US$161 million by Year 5 and more than US$1.2 billion by Year 10.

Those figures are management projections, not NorthSouth’s current revenue, valuation or independently assessed library value. They depend on the company proving its production economics, licensing content repeatedly, expanding into additional markets and achieving the scale described in its business model.

The most useful near-term measures will therefore be more practical: whether the first five shows are completed on budget, whether the initial broadcaster commitments turn into revenue, whether the content is relicensed, and whether creators earn meaningful recurring income from the platform.

If those parts work, the library may indeed become the company’s most important asset. If they do not, the size of the longer-term projection will not matter.

Building infrastructure for African stories

Africa does not have a shortage of stories, talent or audiences. What it still lacks is enough infrastructure capable of turning those ingredients into intellectual property that remains valuable long after the first broadcast.

As Jason put it, “There’s 1.4 billion Africans, but the infrastructure to tell their stories does not exist.”

Our podcast may have been spontaneous, but the subject was anything but casual. It was a conversation about who finances African stories, who owns them, how they reach audiences and where their value ultimately accumulates.

NorthSouth Media is Jason’s attempt to answer those questions with a model built around African production costs, global licensing opportunities and long-term ownership.

Whether NorthSouth can realize the full scale of its ambition remains to be seen. However, it is precisely the kind of unconventional and contextually relevant model that deserves attention as Africa’s media and creative industries continue to evolve.

Learn more about NorthSouth Media: https://northsouth.africa

Connect with Jason Corder: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncordermedia

Listen to the podcast: