The Nigerian government has once again reaffirmed that the era of monopolizing the broadcast space by bigger players in the industry at the expense of the growth and development of the local industry is over.
The country’s Information and Culture Minister, Lai Mohammed disclosed this on Monday in Lagos State at the engagement meeting between the Digital Switch Over Ministerial Task Force and other stakeholders ahead of the Lagos roll out on April 29.
“We have taken some steps to create the enabling environment for the DSO to succeed, for local content to thrive, for indigenous producers to be more engaged and for the local advertising market to grow. Some of these measures have generated a lot of controversies and triggered pushback from some quarters, but we remain undaunted in implementing them for the benefit of our people.”
Mohammed said the Government has deliberately carried out an unprecedented reform of the broadcasting industry, “Because we know that there is a nexus between those reforms and the success of the DSO.
“The amendments were necessitated by the need to boost the local content in Nigeria, curb anti-competitive and monopolistic tendencies and boost advertising revenues. We have amended the Code to curb monopoly and exclusivity of programme content in order to create room for the local industry to grow.
“For example, the pay tv sector of the Broadcast Industry had been controlled by foreign interests, while indigenous efforts to compete have been frustrated or weakened by the established control of the big monopolies.”
He said the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) has licensed over 30 Nigerian pay-tv companies, but only 1 is currently struggling to break through, which he said was not acceptable.
“The monopolies exclude many Nigerians from enjoying or having access to premium content, especially in the area of sports and movies.
“With the amendment to the Code, anyone owning any sports rights must make such available to other parties in Nigeria, who may be interested in acquiring these rights. This obviously extends the opportunity for TV sports content to indigenous players.”
He further revealed that the amended Code will stimulate growth in the Advertising Industry, introducing regulations mandating Media Agencies and Advertisers to offset all outstanding invoices within 60 days related to adverts placement and the barring of carriage of adverts of defaulters.
“Also, under the new amendment, for a programme to qualify as local content, it must be authored, directed and produced by a Nigerian.
“In addition, at least 75 per cent of the leading actors and major supporting cast must be Nigerians, a minimum of 75% of its program expenses and 75% of post-production expenses paid for services provided by Nigerians or Nigerian companies. This initiative will considerably develop the skills, expertise and industry of the local content market.”
The Minister said the aforementioned amendment has started yielding results as a big multinational just recently cancelled a production slated for South Africa and moved it to Nigeria.
“That has resulted to a huge profit for Nigerians. Practitioners in Nigeria made 10 million Naira from the production, while model fees totalled 5 million Naira.
“These are some of the things we have done to ensure the success of the DSO, stimulate local production of quality content, empower channel owners, further give a boost to the music and film industry and generate jobs. Also, as part of efforts to make the DSO proposition viable, I have directed GoTV and StarTimes to stop self carriage by the end of June 2021. It is important for you to own these reforms and monitor their strict implementation, so you can reap the maximum benefits from them.”
Meanwhile, the Acting Director-General of the National Broadcasting Commission, Professor Armstrong Idachaba revealed that the Directorate of Broadcast Research and planning has undertaken a study of the next phase of the rollout and the outcome indicates findings regarding- levels of awareness which is still less than 20 percent.
“It also indicates level of preparedness by broadcasters which generally hovers about 30 percent. The report also covers expected revenues from the DSO, challenges to the roll out and current audience rating of programmes
“To the box manufacturers, Lagos is a huge population; boxes must be on ground and available. Some observers remain unconvinced that our local box manufacturers have the capacity to deliver due largely to the huge projected requirement of 40 million STBs…Kindly make them available and affordable.”
He also expressed optimism that as the world waits to see how Nigeria will switch to one of Africa’s biggest city and population centre, success will be achieved in the process.
Mr Kenny Ogungbe who represented the Broadcasting Organisation of Nigeria appealed a friendly signal carriage fee. He also made a case for a reduction of the license fee for broadcasting stations and urged the set-top box manufacturers to make the boxes affordable and available for Nigerians.
On his part, Chairman of the set-top box manufacturers Association, Mr Godfrey Ohabunwa said the advantage of the technology to the digital broadcast ecosystem is enormous.
He said there is an option of having access to broadband internet connectivity with the box, also the box can allow government access tv license fee, as well as making local communities have access to crystal clear digital tv signals in remote locations.
He said his members have so far invested over 20 billion naira in the production of set-top box and also assured of availability.
“Nigeria as rolled out the Digital Switch Over in five states and Abuja. The programme was launched in Jos, Plateau State, on April 30th 2016. Then in the Federal Capital Territory, Kwara State, Kaduna State, Enugu State and Osun State.
“Roll out will be kick-starting in Lagos state on April 29th 2021, Kano state on June 3rd 2021 and Rivers state on July 8th 2021. We will then follow up with Yobe state on July 15th 2021 and Gombe state on August 12th 2021,” he disclosed.
PIAK
