By Muktar Tahir
The June 2017 deadline for the digital migration of the country’s broadcasting is here and some would say where are we?
However, only recently, the Director-General of National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), Ishaq Modibbo- Kawu during the launch of the digital switchover platform in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital, cried out loudly that the much anticipated migration from analogue to digital broadcasting in the country is slow due to the cost of procuring the equipment needed.
The news captured the directors words as thus: “The 650,000 boxes that we procured for the first phase cost us $26m, that’s a huge amount of money, considering that you are having about 35m television homes in Nigeria with each box [costing] about $45 per box.
“It’s a very expensive process and that’s why we are doing it in the phased manner and we are giving a bouquet of 30 programmes which will continue to expand as more and more producers of television content come on stream.”
To dowse this palpable tension, the DG has since disclosed that his next move was to simultaneously switch on six states, each drawn from the geopolitical zones of the country.
This has been going on and it is evident that this is highly strategic and logical step towards meeting the deadline for Nigerians to start reaping the benefits that come with it.
Truth be told, what underpins this development on the much-taunted baby called ‘digitization’ is the fact that it has graduated from an infant that it was at the Jos pilot phase, to a teenager that it has just grown into in Abuja on that day.
As far as I am concerned, Abuja’s switchover is symbolic in the sense that it is indicative of the fact that digitisation has moved from the pilot phase to the transition proper, which speaks volumes of the possibility of meeting the deadline.
Categorically speaking and as far as this country is concerned, from June this year upward, it’s a revolution galore in the broadcasting ecosystem because we are primarily going to have better visual and audio clarity.
For instance, from the Abuja’s get go, the FCT residents are now enjoying 30 free channels and over 450,000 Set-Top Boxes have been on sale. Reports indicate that more and more people are thronging to buy these boxes, the gateway into the digital era.
Quoting the Information and Culture Minister, Alhaji Lai Mohammed was once reported as pointing out a number of initiatives that are put in place in order to achieve a credible and effective development of our TV and Production industries, and to successfully develop the digital economy.
He mentioned them as thus: “there will be all encompassing Consumer Proposition which most Nigerians have never had access, free and easy access to Government and Public information through a touch of the remote control, Current Affairs and News available through the middleware on the boxes and a world class Electronic Program Guide that will make Television viewing an unbeatable experience.”
The minister also expressed confidence that within 3 years of the digital transition, 1 million jobs will be created in the development of television content, technical services, software development, as well as the installation and repair of Set-Top Boxes for over 24 million TV households, among others.
The increase in Free-To-Air channels and the separation of transmission from content aggregation, according to the minister, will spur an increase in TV production activities, as the Channels will now be able to focus on their TV shows and harness the variety of human and creative skills to compete to become the most watched channel.
By this we could say that the revolution has come with endless possibilities which would as well create other downstream participation of all Nigerians.
Though the DSO requires much financial muscle on the part of the government and broadcasters, the public, who are at the receive end, do not need to part with any huge amount of money to partake in the digital broadcasting feast.
To me, DSO is akin to democracy – freedom to choose from many options. It is common knowledge that media pluralism is a cornerstone of democracy and this fact should be reflected in the plurality of independent and autonomous media and in diversity of media content accessible to all.
Thus, by creating access to all content by all platforms we are going to forbid all forms of monopoly so that all Nigerians can get access to all types of content without having to expend money on multiple devices.
In that case, the revolution is affording Nigerians an opportunity to choose from a variety of channels at next to no cost. More so, it will in no time offer Nigerians what they currently lack in other pay TVs.
Still looking at it from democratic angle, I make bold to say that digitization is one of the country’s democratic dividends, in that apart from provision of jobs to our teeming unemployed youths and artisans, I as well believe that Nigerians as a whole would be happy to intact digitally with their TVs.
More so, judging by what we are seeing now, we may jump into a pleasing conclusion that Jos and Abuja’s transition is a success. What remains of us is to continually appeal to all the states of the federation to get involved in this revolution in view of the enormous economic and social opportunities that abound therein, which they can’t afford to miss out of.
Stakeholder participation is also needed to drive this process. Partnership with the private sector should be one of the defining principle of this process because government alone cannot do it, hence the failure to meet the previous deadlines.
Tahir wrote from Abuja
