Fatu Ogwuche’s weekly show pairs technology news with founder interviews, backed by sponsors and designed to reach audiences across Africa and its diaspora.
For Big Tech This Week founder Fatu Ogwuche, a weekly live show is a way to bring African technology stories closer to the people building and using the products. The new programme, Tech This Week, will mix a technology news rundown with interviews about business, products and culture. Its premise is that audiences want more than a report on a company milestone: they also want to hear directly from the people shaping the industry.
The show will be free to watch, with revenue expected from sponsorships, advertising and paid segments. Ogwuche said about four sponsors have signed on, giving the programme enough runway for a year of weekly broadcasts. She did not disclose the amount of funding or name the sponsors in an interview with TechCabal.
That arrangement gives the production a defined first year to establish a schedule and an audience. The business still has to turn sponsorship into a durable model, though. For a recurring media product, consistency matters to viewers and sponsors alike: each broadcast needs to offer a reason to return, while the company needs to make its commercial formats clear to its audience.
From audio conversations to live video
Tech This Week extends Big Tech This Week’s work into live video. The company’s earlier Twitter Spaces series, Ogwuche said, drew more than 100,000 cumulative listeners over a year. It featured founders, investors and other technology professionals. That audience gives the new show an existing base of people familiar with the brand, but video creates a different production commitment: Ogwuche has invested in equipment and commissioned a set for a weekly broadcast.
Ogwuche points to TBPN, a live technology show focused on Silicon Valley, as a reference for the format. Her aim is to bring a similar sense of immediacy to coverage of African technology, connecting industry developments with conversations among the people involved. “It’s a very important time to hear directly from the people who are essentially in the middle of your life,” she said.
The intended audience spans founders, investors, operators, product users and others following the sector. Across Big Tech This Week’s existing formats, Ogwuche said the largest audience is between 25 and 44. She named Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa and Ethiopia among the markets where viewers and readers are based, alongside diaspora audiences in Britain, the United States and Canada.
A wider range of business stories
Ogwuche’s editorial case for the show rests on a shift in the kinds of stories emerging from technology companies. She describes much of the past decade as a period when businesses focused on practical needs such as making payments, saving and investing money, and running businesses. Those areas remain important, but she also sees founders exploring gaming, entertainment, sport and other interests.
That wider mix creates room to cover how technology intersects with culture and everyday life, not just company launches and fundraising milestones. “The last decade has been building for survival,” she said, describing some newer founders as building from “joy” and “curiosity”. The format can make those motivations part of the conversation, while still asking how a product works and what the company is trying to build.
The guest list is meant to include established industry figures as well as newer founders, engineers and product managers. Ogwuche expects her professional relationships to help bring on people who do not often give interviews. Access may help a young show secure guests, but its lasting value will depend on whether those conversations offer detail and insight audiences can’t get from a company’s own messaging.
Coverage across the continent is another part of the plan. Speaking from Addis Ababa, where she had been meeting founders, Ogwuche said the show would seek stories beyond Nigeria. She said the weekly schedule would push her to cover milestones in other parts of Africa more consistently. That is an editorial task as much as a production one: a broad regional identity has to show up in the stories and guests selected week after week.
Access with editorial boundaries
A show built around founder interviews has to balance welcoming guests with examining their claims. Asked how she would avoid giving companies an uncritical platform, Ogwuche said she intends to cover both achievements and periods when a business runs into trouble. “If you’re building and you’re doing something incredible, I’m going to cover it,” she said. “If you land in trouble, I’m also going to cover it.”
She said she wants to avoid “gotcha” journalism, while making clear that access should not guarantee flattering coverage. At the same time, she expects the programme to emphasize promising work in the industry. “What I really want to focus on is the positive things that happen,” she said. How those aims work together will become clearer as the show handles difficult questions alongside its celebration of new products and companies.
Commercial formats will also require clear signals for viewers. In addition to sponsorship and advertising, Ogwuche said some segments would be paid for, with product reviews among the formats being developed. She did not explain how paid segments would be identified or separated from the show’s editorial coverage. That distinction will matter for a programme seeking to build trust while relying on commercial support.
Distribution beyond the live broadcast
The live programme is also the start of a wider distribution plan. Full interviews and shorter clips are planned for YouTube and social platforms including Instagram and LinkedIn. Audio will be available through Spotify and Apple Podcasts. This gives the company ways to reach people who miss the scheduled broadcast and lets individual conversations circulate after the live show ends.
Internet access will still shape who can watch. Ogwuche said the programme is aimed primarily at a digital audience, while hoping journalists and broadcasters will draw on its interviews to share useful information through other channels. The show’s reach, then, will depend on both the online audience it can build and how far its conversations travel beyond the original broadcast.
For now, sponsorship gives Tech This Week a year to prove it can maintain a weekly rhythm, attract guests and serve audiences across multiple markets. Ogwuche’s larger ambition is to show that African technology coverage can support more formats while staying authoritative and enjoyable. “We need to keep creating things that are fun, enjoyable, but also authoritative,” she said.
