Respected entertainment journalist and critic Ayeni Adekunle has launched a weekly entertainment newspaper.
Nigerian Entertainment Today (NET) is a 16-paged all-colour newspaper that parades all you ever need in entertainment. The newspaper first hit the stands on April 26, 2010 with a special tribute edition to late rapper Dagrin.
NET is an off-shoot of www.thenetng.com, Nigeria’s most popular entertainment news website, and the country’s fastest entertainment breaking news service, ever. www.thenetng.com went live on November 23, 2009.
Ayeni, who has over the past seven years anchored popular entertainment columns in Encomium, THISDAY and THE PUNCH, apart from contributing regularly for Hiphopworld Magazine and The Africa Report, told journalists in Lagos, that the website and newspaper ‘are children of necessity’.
‘Personally, it’s a dream come true for me. But more importantly, what we’re trying to do is to fill a vacuum; to fill a void. Young people want their info on the move. They’re on Facebook, Twitter, they spend all their time chatting on Blackberry messenger. They’re hooked to E!, TMZ and the rest. So we thought, why not create a service that’ll deliver Nigerian content to them real time? That’s what gave birth to thenetng.com. And within five months, we were already attracting millions of users. It seemed unbelievable that people didn’t have to wait four, five days anymore before finding out what’s happening. If any story breaks now, within minutes, it’s up on the site. With picture evidence and all necessary confirmations. Now, people tell me that whenever they’re arguing about any story, and they need to confirm who’s right or wrong, they agree to go to thenetng.com. And it’s gotten even better since our coverage of the Dagrin accident, hospitalisation and eventual passing’’
"It was only a matter of time, before we published the newspaper’’, Ayeni continues. The readers want more; more than the few pages in the general interest newspapers every weekend. They want all the scoops; loads of pictures, exclusive interviews, exciting features and what have you. Entertainment is booming increasingly and the industry is vibrant. We thought it was about time someone did a paper that’;; be dedicated to the industry. Look at all what’s happening in Nollywood, the exploits of our fashion designers, how well our artistes are doing all over the world, and the amazing feats our authors and writers are achieving. Impressive! So, even though we knew all the risks and uncertainties associated with publishing, we decided to take the leap. Someone had to do it, and i’m happy that we are the one."
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