Digital broadcasting: FG directs MDAs to meet deadline

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By Abdullahi M. Gulloma
Abuja
The federal government has directed relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to ensure that the country meets the June 2017 global deadline for migration from analogue to digital broadcasting.

Addressing State House correspondents at the end of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting in Abuja, Minister of Information and Culture, Mr. Lai Mohammed said the directive was necessary because Nigerians would not be able to receive signals on their televisions if the country used analogue broadcasting by June 2017.
The minister also told journalists that jobs associated with the switchover would also be lost should the country fail to meet the deadline.
He said the digitalisation of broadcast in the country would put pirates out of business as musicians and film makers would release their films or records direct on demand.
He said the pilot programme of the migration exercise, which is line with the directives of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), was successfully carried out in Jos, the Plateau state capital, this year, using special set-up boxes to provide free digital signals of 15 broadcast stations.
“The pilot scheme in Jos, which was successfully deployed at the end of April, is working very well and today those who are in possession of our setup boxes can view 15 channels with clarity in Jos and the highlights of today’s council meeting is that council reaffirmed its support for us to meet the deadline of 2017 June and directed that the relevant ministries work together to achieve these deadline,” he said.
The minister said funds for the project are available and contracts have been awarded for the supply of the digital setup boxes at affordable prices to Nigerians.
He said signal distributors would henceforth be solely responsible for sending broadcast signals to the consumers while broadcast content would be the responsibility of station owners.
The minister expressed optimism on the possibility of meeting the deadline even in the face of the current economic challenges in the country, stressing that: “Nigeria might be going through a very difficult time it doesn’t mean that we are going to be cut off from the rest of the world. Twenty years ago Ethiopia had a famine that ravaged the whole country they have risen from the ashes of that famine to become one of the strongest economies of the world.”