The Africa Channel enlists AI to power next-generation facilities business TAC Labs
The Africa Channel (TAC) has launched a tech-driven content facilities arm called TAC Labs, offering a suite of low-cost AI-powered post-production and content management tools to help content creators launch in new markets and expand their reach.
The US-based company’s CEO, Narendra Reddy, said the new facilities would help the group in its own mission to make African content and stories accessible to a global audience as well as allow it to “thrive as an independent company with limited resources in an increasingly consolidated landscape.”
TAC Labs’ tools include DubMaster; SmartBreakAI, for intelligent ad placement; StoryFlow, for content curation and manipulation; ImageIQ; and TagStream, to help with discoverability, audience engagement and monetisation.
“Our team has continued to innovate and do more with less. As we continued to develop and refine AI-enabled tools to optimise and streamline our own post-production and broadcasting processes, we began to see a demand and interest in our tools and services by third parties, which led to the genesis of TAC Labs,” said Reddy.
TAC, which launched as a traditional cable network 20 years ago, now operates across ad-funded linear, FAST and on-demand streaming channels, and a production studio.
It focuses on contemporary pan-African content aimed at US audiences and a global African diaspora. Up to 90% of its titles are licensed from key suppliers in sub-Saharan Africa, but it also offers a small slate of originals developed through TAC Studios and African producers.
One of these is reality show African Royale, featuring Nigerian heiress Abimbola Fernandez, which is coproduced with Mike Aho Productions. The French version of African Royale was made using the new AI-powered tools.
TAC Labs is headed by Chris Eckman, also TAC’s senior VP of operations and OTT services, who said it “represents our bold vision to revolutionise how global content reaches audiences. We’re not just improving media operations – we’re completely transforming them.
“As we refine these solutions, we’re creating a future where compelling stories from Africa and beyond can captivate viewers worldwide without the prohibitive costs and complexity that have limited distribution in the past. We’re changing more than workflows; we’re shaping the future of global entertainment.”
