Rising from a three-day Africast
event penultimate week the global community would actually have left
Nigeria with a great sense of satisfaction that something tangible is
being done in the broadcast sector to migrate Nigerian broadcasters
from analogue to digital.
The International
Telecommunications Union, ITU, put a 2015 window but Nigeria has set
2012 for the migration.
Africast is a biennial programme
of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), which brings together
broadcast experts from different parts of the world, to brainstorm on
broadcast issues and chart a way forward.
This year’s event explored the
theme: Digitisation and the Challenges of Broadcasting; a theme
most apt because the world is at the verge of a major broadcast shift
and Nigeria provided the much needed platform for a major discourse.
Information and Communications
Minister, Mr. John Ogar Odey made the best of the moment by informing
the international community how prepared Nigeria was for the digital
shift, explaining that he had just set up a Presidential Committee to
prepare the country’s position and suggest things that were possible
and could help the government of Nigeria in taking a crucial step that
could impact positively on the people.
However, Africast 2008 happened
at a time there are very great and positive developments in the
country’s broadcast market. This was demonstrated at the robust
exhibition which held at the Ladi Kwali Hall of the Sheraton Hotel,
Abuja. Big Nigerian broadcasters were all present including the
African Independent Television (AIT), Nigerian Television Authority (NTA),
Voice of Nigeria (VON), Radio Nigeria, Multichoice and a host of
others as well as hardware manufacturers and marketers. Most of them
were broadcasting live. In fact, AIT, actually took some of its
programmes from their exhibition standard.
Africast came up at time that
the country’s Digital Satellite Television (DSTv), sub-sector of
broadcasting, is getting fully deregulated. After a period of
protracted monopoly enjoyed by Multichoice, the NBC has breathed some
fresh air into the DSTV sector immediately giving birth to HiTV and
lately DaarSat.
At the moment HiTV is hitting
over 150, 000 subscribers and DaarSat recently launched services in a
major outing demonstrating to the rest of the world that it was ready
to do business in that globally competitive sector.
For a start, all the signals
coming into DaarSat will be received and turned around at the Kpaduma
Hills, headquarters of the organisation. Even now quite a number of
other operators are warming up for services. This was something very
positive that the international community saw in Abuja.
However, when the special guest
at the occasion, Senate President, represented by Senator Ayogu Eze
was being taken round the stands, some remarks made by some people in
government suddenly prompted the question: how prepared are Nigerian
broadcasters to compete globally?
Asked to visit the VON and the
NTA facilities, somebody suddenly asked, I hope they are not going to
show us those things they have always shown us? The simple explanation
is that in terms of technology those organisations may not be ready to
compete globally.
But this issue quickly gave rise
to another one: the deregulation of the Broadcast industry and the
readiness of the public broadcaster, the NTA, to compete globally.
Pursuing this position, somebody close by quickly remarked that in
spite of previous efforts by government to dress up the station, it
doesn’t seem to be in a position to compete. That on its own is a
problem. The other problem, according to his submission is that as an
international broadcaster, the station also engages in activities that
will stifle the competition or the voice, that NBC is trying to create
in the sector.
Unable to understand his line of
thought, one could only ask for some explanations. Readily obliging,
the gentleman who looked versed in broadcasting traced some recent
developments in the broadcast industry and juxtaposed them with the
position of the government broadcast stations in international
broadcasting.
He remarked that watching the
DaarSat launch on television, the chairman of the organization, Chief
Raymond Dokpesi had bragged that his station would serve Nigerian news
and Nigerian type programming to the international community. This,
the organization hopes to achieve because of heavy investment in
satellite space and downlink facilities. What could be very
encouraging, he continued, is that if the station succeeds others
would follow. Nigeria would have a very strong voice at the
international community, having joined the prestigious pay TV
business.
In the past few years, NTA has
been hitting the international community with Nigerian contents. What
cannot be guaranteed, according to this young man who wished to remain
anonymous, is the quality of content being dished out. However, one
certain thing is that the contents are taken on Intelsat 907 as the
main vehicle into the United Kingdom (UK) and gets into the United
States through Globecast, a major platform for international
broadcasters. While the other channels are paid for and have receive
equipment, NTA signals are free.
Meanwhile, the station pays at
least $3m dollars to satellite owners every year. The reason for this
kind of attitude is that as a public broadcaster, the station has not
attached a business edge to its operation. Buttressing his position,
he pointed out that when South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC)
came into Nigeria, it was through a pay TV platform. When British
Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) television also came into Nigeria it
was through a pay TV platform. But the locals receive free signals on
their TV back home. Since payments were made for those services, it
then means the national broadcaster is able to send quality signals to
its international arm and be able to make some money from subscription
to upset the cost of programming and satellite space. This is not the
practice at the NTA presently. For this gentleman, the position of the
NTA is quite ironical. With a devastating global financial crisis,
organisations should be looking at more avenues through which to make
money and survive, and not waste the tax payers’ funds.
Why not discounting that there
is always a mutual distrust between public and private broadcasters,
he noted that such mistrust is always addressed by the regulator
through appropriate regulations. He pointed to the case of
Public-service TVs and Private broadcasters in Europe who are on each
other’s neck over sports rights which the public broadcasters are
buying with tax payers’ money but are being given out to subscribers
cheaply. The private broadcasters are accusing the public broadcasters
of exorbitant right fees by tapping into the triple source of revenue
– public subsidy, advertising, and the ability to generate huge
deficits.
The European Commission is
addressing the situation by revisiting the 2001 Broadcasting
Communication, although there seems to be a consensus that "a state
channel’s output should be predominantly public-service, but it needs
to be viable service too.
His position is that at least
the European public broadcasters are making efforts to do modern
business but not the NTA which is giving out signals free in prime
markets. Just as the European Commission is addressing the case
between the Public-service and Private broadcasters in Europe, he
urged the Nigerian government through the NBC to, as a matter of
urgency, do something about the NTA situation.
What does he therefore suggest?
He advocated a regulation that could create better business models for
Nigerian broadcasters. Granted that any station has liberty to decide
what it does with its signals, whether to give it free or not, he is
of the opinion that properly licensing NTA and bringing it in line
with the regulations of the NBC may go a long way into putting the
station in a position to know that it has to make money apart from the
subventions by government, and decide on reasonable channels through
which to spend the money.
Broadcast contents coming out of
Nigeria must be made competitive both in quality and in terms of cost
and only competition and fair trade practices can guarantee survival
and success of the various organisations rushing to give the country a
voice at the international level.
