Nigeria has long been home to a sizeable game show audience. A great many have landed here, reached massive viewership figures, and even run for over a decade. You can look to Come Play Naija, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, Family Feud, Overall Best Celebrity Showdown, or Arewa Game Show as prime examples of the might of the game show here.
What makes Masọyinbo distinct from this crowd is both its platform and its purpose. Put out by EAYoruba on YouTube, Masoyingo mixes big questions with light conversation and all while seeking to educate viewers in the Yoruba language. The format is clearly a big hit, as its viewership figures continue to do well and the program now plans to expand its IP into new areas of entertainment.
From YouTube to Live Shows for Masọyinbo
Having a very clear objective while also being entertaining is the key to becoming a successful game show. For Masọyinbo, it’s all about speaking Yoruba purely. This means speaking and answering questions in the West African language without slipping into words and phrases from Western European languages. Olalekan Fabilola, a host on the show, says that it’s about fostering “cultural pride.”
Usually, a game show would want to air on an already popular TV channel to reach a vast audience. Masọyinbo, however, is taking a different approach, while making the most of the country’s surging internet population, which recently broke past being 40 percent of the population. With 368 videos posted at the time of writing, EAYoruba’s channel for Masọyinbo has managed to amass over 213,000 subscribers. Each of its most popular Masọyinbo videos has well over 1 million views, too.
Seeing the popularity of the show through the ever-accessible online video platform, EAYoruba is now taking its show on the road. Masọyinbo Live will be coming to Kenya, South Africa, and Egypt for special live shows. Due to logistical challenges, the organizers did need to move the dates around a bit, but they remained keen to bring the entertaining and enlightening online game show to audiences across Africa in person.
Masọyinbo was already breaking the mold by hosting its show on YouTube. Arguably, it’s precisely because it went down this route rather than the standard domestic TV deal path that the show’s been able to go on a tour of live shows beyond Nigeria. The next steps for Masọyinbo might just be further embracing the live show elements, and even adapting for the newest form of game show play.
They could, for instance, still learn from the example set by a staple feature of modern online casinos in countries around the world, from Nigeria to the UK, US, and beyond. At the casino online, several live game shows are constantly on the go. They feature a live host, real money play, and the users play the games in real time, be it a big wheel spin, a card game, or something entirely different. If the programmers could therefore figure out a way for audience members to compete along with the actual contestants in a live virtual format, they could tap into yet another rich field of engagement.
As with all of the game shows that have taken to this new live environment, Masọyinbo would need a bit of tweaking. The current format would need to be turned to enable more elements of randomization and audience participation. Even so, it’s doable, and would be a natural next step for the already online game show.
Masọyinbo is indisputably a huge success, but clearly EAYoruba wants to explore even more corners of entertainment to grow the novel game show further, and this can only be good news for fans.
