MultiChoice Nigeria Limited and Heritage Bank, two of the companies that partnered to produce the just concluded Big Brother Naija, have been left red-faced by claim by Union Bank that producers of the reality TV show raked in N5.1billion as profit, Qed.ng has learnt.
The show, which ended on Sunday, was won by Miracle Igbokwe from Imo State, who got a cash prize of N25million, an SUV and other prizes with a combined worth of N45million.
Show host, Ebuka Obi-Uchendu, disclosed during the closing ceremony that a total of 170 million votes were cast all through the three months the show lasted for and 30 million in the last week alone.
Assuming that all the votes came via short message service (SMS) at the cost of N30 each, some followers concluded that the producers must have made a profit of N5.1billion from viewers who participated in the voting.
The Twitter handlers of Union Bank also fell for the figure and tweeted on Sunday that N5.1billion was made.
Quick maths Twitter fam. If 170million votes were received during the show, at N30 per vote, that’ll be N5.1billion…#BBnaija #BBNaijaFinale
— UNION BANK (@UNIONBANK_NG) April 22, 2018
Even when it was informed that there was online voting, Union Bank insisted that the total sum is still in billions.
So let’s say 40% of the votes were done online. Total sum is still in BILLIONS.#bbnaija #BBNaijaFinale https://t.co/EyGj0DnZLm
— UNION BANK (@UNIONBANK_NG) April 22, 2018
The widespread misconception about the profit has left MultiChoice, Heritage Bank, Payporte and other partners upset, this online paper was reliably informed.
“A meagre 1.7 per cent of the 170 million votes that decided the show just concluded Big Brother Naija came via sms,” a source close to MultiChoice disclosed. The remaining 98.3 per cent came via online voting platforms.
The source also disclosed that votes came from viewers in 49 African countries, with Nigerian viewers the only ones allowed to vote by SMS or text message.
“Voting was open to 49 countries across Africa. Voting platforms were online, website and mobisite (website via phone) and SMS.
“Over 98 per cent of the votes came from website and mobisite. Nigeria was the only country allowed to vote via SMS,” revealed the source.
Union Bank also didn’t take into consideration that “telecommunication and data services companies could not have made their infrastructure available at no cost,” the source concluded.
