The 5th season of Big Brother Naija which started on 19 July on DStv and GOtv as a pop-up channel and ended on 27 September 2020, broke Showmax video streaming record to become the most-watched entertainment live-stream on Showmax in Nigeria. Apart from this, MultiChoice and M-Net West Africa leverage massively on the reality show to drive subscriber uptake . However, reports indicate that the company was a bit surprised by the remarkably large number of subscribers who opted to watch Big Brother Naija Lockdown through Showmax rather than on DStv or GOtv channels.
Now the sixth season of Big Brother Naija is upon us. This year’s prize tops the previous seasons as MultiChoice Nigeria announced N90 million (USD 236,000) worth of prizes – the highest in the show’s history. Fast-rising rapper, Olamilekan ‘Laycon” Agbeleshe, won the 2020 Big Brother Naija Lockdown edition and walked away with USD 200,000 cash prize, a two-bedroom apartment, an SUV from Innoson Motors, a trip to Dublin, among others.
To draw more interest in the auditions, MultiChoice Nigeria, on Wednesday, 24 March, announced that it is offering customers on its DStv and GOtv platforms the opportunity to be among the first to audition for the sixth season of the Big Brother Naija reality show. To measure interest among the young audience in Nigeria, we engaged our national focus group (those between 18 – 35 years) on their interests in the show and how the brand’s latest customer acquisition strategy would motivate them to subscribe to DStv or GOtv.
The show has become a money-making machine for the service provider: specific reports have indicated that Bet9ja, the headline sponsor in 2019, invested N1.08 billion to replace Payporte as the lead sponsor of Big Brother Naija. From music to lifestyle, the show lays bare the intersection between brands, communities, and pop culture. Even as stars have risen from the show to become household names, the audience metrics for the DStv and GOtv are not fully revealed, especially how it improves new subscribers or renewals.