Guardian TV has taken the lead in terms of branded digital TV content in the space – launching a brand new finance series called ‘Your Life, Your Money’, hosted by money blogger Arese Ugwu. Content is built in partnership with Zenith Bank through its Aspire account for undergraduates.

That’s significant.

So far the only Digital TV platforms getting any money spend, whether self-hosted or hosted via YouTube is Pulse TV, and they are no more than product placements.

This is the first time an online-only TV show is being fully branded by an advertiser from scratch, taking a lead from content formats across BuzzFeed, Vice, even CNN, which has been experimenting with its branded content studio. Courageous.

The show launches on 15 August and is an eight-episode fully branded video series.

How much of this is a result of analytics isn’t clear yet. As its platform is custom-hosted, there is nowhere for the public to see views judging from talkability, shareability and even comments on the videos though (nada at this point), we would say: Not so much. Guardian TV doesn’t also as yet have much in terms of brand visibility – so a new show, on a new platform, focused on finance for an audience (undergraduate) that has clearly shown preferences for news and humour?

More than the new impressive energy that new Editor-in-Chief, Toke Ibru has brought to the Guardian in the past year, it’s more likely a result of Daryn Wober, who is chief executive at Ventra Media. Ventra run’s Guardian’s digital operations as well as digital media and marketing for Zenith Bank.

Potential nepotism aside though, this is a good look for the many, many, many people who are investing monies in Digital TV. If one of the country’s leading bank spenders throws a glance at Digital TV spend, then maybe it accelerates how much attention others give to it.

Which is a net positive for everyone.

PS: See anything worth talking about on the ins and outs of the media business in Nigeria on TV, radio, print and online (could be news, tweets, photos, opeds etc) send us a mail on [email protected] titled TMB. Let’s share the insight together!

YWriter