The Nation Newspaper

Tag: digital switch-over

  • FG on course with Digital Switch Over implantation

    The Federal Government has resolved the brewing crisis threatening the implementation of the Digital Switch Over (DSO) from analogue television broadcasts in the country.

    The National Security Adviser (NSA), Babagana Monguno, had on Thursday summoned the critical stakeholders in the DSO to a meeting where the contentious issues involved were discussed and resolved.

    The NSA had told the stakeholders the Federal Government was determined to uphold its policy on DSO and also ensuring that private investment in the Nigerian economy was not discouraged.

    The meeting, which lasted about three hours, witnessed the diplomatic negotiation and consensus building capacity of the NSA that facilitated a resolution of the five year old dispute, which interrupted smooth implementation of the DSO and twice led to missing set deadlines.

    The Federal Government policy on DSO was thereby protected from legal interpretation in law courts while also salvaging solid private investment in the nation’s economy and attendant jobs created through the investment from uncertainty and jeopardy.

    At the meeting were Senator Elect and Chairman of the Board of NBC, Ikra Bilbis, DG NBC, Ishaq Modibbo Kawu, the CEO of Details Nigeria Limited, operators of Goth, John Ugbe and Chairman, Pinnacle Communications Limited, Sir Lucky Omoluwa whose efforts to make the meeting possible was acknowledged by the NSA, and COO of Pinnacle Communications Limited, Dipo Onifade.

  • ‘Foreigners must not take digital switch over from Nigerians’

    ‘Foreigners must not take digital switch over from Nigerians’

    Mr. Toyin Subair floated the defunct HITV. Now Executive Chairman, Digital Play Nigeria Limited, a firm that is set to revolutionise television, Subair, in this interview with LUCAS AJANAKU, speaks on Play TV, saying that foreigners must not be allowed to hijack Digital Switch Over (DSO) and that DSO funding can be achieved through innovative solutions.

    What is your assessment of the television and broadcast environment?

    This time in Nigeria, television is critical. Nigeria has to take back the leadership role in television in Africa. Many years ago, we started the battle to ensure that those who wanted their  part of the world or Africa to become the hub of broadcasting for Nigeria; or  Africa will not succeed because they are only to become subservient when it comes to broadcasting.

    So, there will be continuous battle to recognise that, but you know at times people are just happy with what they have; they don’t think about tomorrow. They don’t think about our culture. People don’t fight for Nigeria. That is a big error and a problem in this system and when you have someone like me, how does it apply to our television?

    We started television first in Africa.What has happened since then?

    We have a situation where there are two pay TV companies in the country – one is Chinese, the other South African. The two DTT pay platforms in Nigeria one is Chinese, one is South Africa. No Nigeria DTT is anywhere. Look at production, we have the talents in Africa when it comes to film, music and in television, but then, what do you find? We are not able to monetise it because we have not put the infrastructure and the platforms in place for people to enjoy it, for talent and creativity to thrive and grow. So, the people who have infrastructure are coming to take over our creativity and our talent and to control it, so that they direct how it is done because infrastructure is key. The problem is that, we think creativity is everything; it is what the world wants. But it needs infrastructure to thrive; it needs a particular kind of environment to thrive. So, they know that we have a position. South Africa has infrastructure and, then, they come and took our creativity and they didn’t want to own it.They’ve tried to duplicate our creativity. They cannot find it. They don’t have it.

    Nollywood has thrived without doing anything, Afro Beat has thrived without doing anything. This is our blessing. Now, we need to fight the infrastructural battle. We need to own the platforms. We need to get the right kind of funding. We need to ensure that our stories are told the way we want them to be told and that they are not bastardised by the one controlling it. Somebody else is deciding what goes on and what doesn’t, when it should go and how it shouldn’t go out. You don’t want that, you don’t want people to take our creativity out of the country. In the world of content ownership, the infrastructure part of it provides so many jobs. It provides so much money. If you let the people put our infrastructure for everything, our creativity needs to be deployed outside Nigeria. The amount of jobs that we will lose, the foreign exchange and the power is much.

    We have the greatest tool of such power that the world has seen since either America or India and we are not able to influence people with it because we are letting other people dictate how it is seen, enjoyed, consumed, and what to act and what not to act, if they keep on controlling it. So, there’s a place where we need to take and the biggest opportunity for us to do that has been the Digital Switch Over (DSO) because in DSO, what that means is that everyone has to have an appliance, whether it’s smart TV or a decoder to consume television or any other value-added services. So, this is our infrastructure. This is Nigeria’s opportunity to take control.  We have 24 million plus TV households. If we own an infrastructure that is delivering television to 24 TV households and it belongs to us; we are using it to make sure that our own content is deployed. It is monetised, paid for appropri ately and  where I create any content, I will go there, sell it and present it to the people. This is what DSO is about. It is about every home consuming television and every creative person having access to every home.

    Thrice government has set time for DSO, but failed to meet the target. What are the issues?

    The first thing is that we need to own it. There is a battle for ownership. It can’t go to the foreigner again. From what I see, and that is what people will not say, the battle is about who should own DSO? Other people want to come and own it. When we were sitting down here just doing analogue, some people saw the opportunity that everybody has to own this chance too – let’s go and take that country. So, the real truth is that there is a battle that is going on behind and it is because some people want to take it over and own it and some local people are fighting back and saying, no we will own it. And then you have the people that the late Fela Anikulapo Kuti said: dem go find one man of low mentality, dem go give him small money, put him there and then use him to control his people. So, you people looking for some of these men of low mentality that they will use to control and own our television and 24 million TV households, the biggest in sub-Saharan Africa. So, this is the biggest issue, but it’s the one that you do not see. They dress it up in all kinds of things, but at the back, there is a huge monster trying to consume our eye balls and control our creativity. So, this is the real battle. We need to fund this because it’s not like other parts of the world, that you can get the money easily to do things. Money here is too expensive, especially for the creative industry. We have to look for how to do that and I can see this government doing so much work in trying to reduce the cost of financing for the creative sector. At least, I’ve seen a few steps taken by the Minister of Information, the CBN governor and the Minister of Finance. They have been doing a lot to try and get this into play, but then with regards to DSO itself, a lack of understanding of what DSO itself means technically is that at times people don’t see where the money is.

    So, they say there is no money, how can you say there is no money? The very essence of DSO is that you free up spectrum that people can use to go and sell data and make data cheaper via LT 4G 5G. So, 16 TV analogue channels find something that if they move to digital, they will only need a fraction of it and then you can take the rest and sell it. So,with regards to the funding of DSO, we are sitting on it ourselves with no transaction being done properly to free it. So, it’s like a chicken and egg situation. You are sitting on the money, but you need to monetise it; you just need a few smart people in one room, create a model where it is used as security to fund the rest of DSO and then once it is funded and you remove the people, you use the asset and you sell it off to monetise the investment. Now, what I just said looks simple; we make it difficult for ourselves.

    The frequency you talked about is what the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) calls digital dividend. Some broadcast stations are on those frequencies. They need to vacate the frequencies before they can be freed.

    What model do you recommend?

    There are many ways you can model it. Everywhere in the world, this is what has been done so, it’s either the telcos pay to move them out, and to move them out that means you deploy some measure of infrastructure both in terms of mast for DSO equipment or then receiving the equipment for those who can’t afford it because you cannot switch off and then put 60 per cent of the country in darkness when it comes to television. ITU doesn’t allow that. It requires that the same amount of people have access to it as you did before when you were in analog. You have to play this thing very well, but you just need intelligent financial application to put to it, which is simple. You have a house in a backyard, there’s a tenant inside it. If you sell the house, you’ll be able to pay for 10 houses somewhere else. You tell the tenant leave and the tenant is saying that I won’t vacate; okay tenant, let me do a deal with you. When you vacate, pay me for this thing. The 10 houses I’m going to build, I will give you one of them, let’s sign the contract because this people are ready to build, but you are the one disturbing them. The tenant says okay fine. I will vacate once you give me that asset; don’t worry about; it tells the people it is done. I will vacate on this day. They sign a document, the people then go and the tenant is as good as left.

    They go, build the infrastructure and when they’re finished, the tenant moves there and then they collect the property. This is not rocket science; Nigeria is not the first to do it. In some countries, they have the money outside the transaction, we don’t because Nigeria doesn’t have that $400million, $300million to deploy in this first and then you get the frequencies and start selling. No, it’s the same transaction, but it can be done,  but they need to understand that this is the way to fund the rest of it. Nigeria will benefit in many ways from DSO, because it allows every home to become internet ready, connected, to become a destination for information; that they’ve never heard before. To do, transactions you’ll  need the decoder, bring internet into the home, bring it to a digital age.  If I put it in a very blunt way, data is not an end, it is a means to an end. The telcos have looked at data as if data is everything and that’s why they are not making money from it. Without video at the end of data, you cannot make money from it. You’ll struggle, all the financial applications; those things that they do cannot consume between three and four per cent of the available space that they have, but when you start using video. Then you consume, you have  to price video, you have to make it available. You remember when we had the initial phone networks. They said it was Nigeria stock because you’ll just carry the phone call 090, you’ll just be talking. This is where you need to get them to, you need to get them to video on data. Once people are doing video on data, you make money.

    WhatsApp is making life impossible for the network because it is becoming more efficient every day. You need less data everyday when you are using WhatsApp because they want you to keep on using WhatsApp, so they come up with all kinds of compression technology, even Facebook is one of them.  So, the mobile phone companies are receiving their own and they don’t understand what they need to do and in a country that has Nollywood, that has Afro Beat, that has the kind of music videos that we have, that has comedy, jokes,  Fuji, content that will push data can never be a problem. Some things happen here that when you see, you wonder, ‘what is happening here? It’s like my people say somebody has a head, he has no arm. Somebody has heart, he has no head. It’s something that is signal there. The money to do it is within the system, it’s in people’s hand, it’s in corporation’s hand. The power is in the hands of government. We don’t even need non-Nigeria entity to be involved in this. There’s nothing they bring to us. We have everything; so it’s to deploy those resources and I think that we will get there. As time goes on, people will realise that there is no free lunch. When you look at the DSO, the way it’s been framed, we have two signal distributors, one of them is Pinnacle, a 100 per cent local company that has been equipping and broadcasting for over 30 years.

    So you’ve got Pinnacle signal distributor, they are well funded, they can do whatever they need to do and then you find that what has happened in Nigeria is that all the free to air channels are not going to need their transmitters anymore; they have to go to the signal distributor in order to benefit from DSO and so like what you said is happening in Kaduna, Abuja, Jos, Ilorin, Enugu so they are giving their channels to this people and this people will re-transmit for them so they don’t need all that work anymore, they pack the work with the signal distributor on behalf of Nigeria. The big problem is now that the foreign paid TV firms in Nigeria who are also on spectrum that is required and are also transmitting not only on satellite but using Nigeria’s spectrum, they want to stay separate and keep on doing what they are doing, you take transmission from the free to air company, you’ll have to take it from the pay TV company, you take if from the local Nigerian company, you have to take it from the foreign company.

  • False start in Digital Switch Over

    For the Nigerian broadcast industry, it must have been a rude shock to encounter the damning report on the status of the equipment and facilities deployed by federal government-owned NTA off-shoot, Integrated Television Services (ITS) for the Digital Switch Over (DSO) pilot project in Jos and the Ilorin broadcast centre. It is disheartening to say the least that after years of failed attempts to launch the nation’s digital broadcasting system and meet the international dateline for the switch over from analogue broadcasts, our success in switching on is again doomed by deliberate bungling of routine implementation processes.

    In the first part of “Realities of the Digital Switch On (DSO)” focused on signal distributors widely published in the press by Tony Dara, a renowned broadcast engineer, it was revealed that behind the façade of official bravado over the Jos pilot project lurked a scandalous scenario of obsolete equipment, old transmitters and buildings and failure to meet set targets. The disturbing implication of these lapses is that the nation is heading for another display of the “bad image” to the rest of the world as well as short-lived success of government implementation of the DSO, not to mention the tirade of tantrums from millions of Nigerians soon to be shut-out from receiving digital broadcasts.

    For general information, it should be understood that the idea of granting NTA automatic status as national digital signal distributor for the DSO was to enable the federal government to provide leadership and retain dominance for control in the national interest relying on NTA’s undisputed spread and experience in television broadcasting. As long ago as 2012 when the White Paper on DSO was released and an implementation team tagged DigiTeam established with the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission (NBC) as supervisory regulator, the ITS should have been up and doing to live up to expectations and justify the confidence reposed in the “expertise” of the “largest television network in Africa”. The series of forced postponements in launching the DSO was like injury time to perfect the take-off of the pilot project in 2015.

    Alas, the situation today – going by the Dara Report – is that the combined collaboration of government agencies-DigiTeam, NBC, and NTA/ITS- has instead inflicted serious injury on the anticipated grand success of national roll-out of digital broadcasting in Nigeria, a feat that several nations across the world have accomplished impressively. What these agencies have delivered amounts to a false start of one bogus step forward and several bungled steps backward, mere motion without movement. It is another indictment of the role of government agencies in carrying out their statutory functions to the people of Nigeria in accordance with international best practices and good governance. Perhaps we will ultimately have to privatize government for Nigeria to really move forward!

    Specifically, one is at a loss to understand how and why NTA/ITS under the watch of NBC and by extension the information ministry could go ahead and install “transmitters that have been discontinued by the original equipment manufacturer,” as the Dara Report authoritatively asserted.  Or why old analogue antenna masts and towers of the NTA transmission system were retained for “switch over” to digital broadcasting? So even the Jos pilot project showcase of government in DSO put up by ITS supposedly to cover the whole of Plateau from three sites “remains an illusion” since only Jos city location, not the entire Jos township can receive digital signals? And we cannot even provide new buildings customized for the DSO equipment and facilities and we are “managing” old buildings “that are clearly neither fit for purpose nor appropriate for digital broadcasting workflow.”

    We are clearly bedevilled by the notorious “Nigerian factor” again contrary to the best efforts of the reformist Buhari administration to change the disastrous course of the ship of state. At the root of all the identified flaws in the NTA/ITS components of the DSO NIGERIA project are the same old cankerworms of corruption, maladministration, hidden agenda among other entrenched malpractices that are against national and public interest. Here again is good reason for believing that corruption is not about to fight back when it is not only alive and kicking but, in this case, even blowing its trumpet on bogus DSO!

    Nigeria cannot afford to be the butt of jokes as the Dara Report predicted and therefore the National Assembly DSO Committee should seize advantage of the candid, authoritative and patriotic findings and do the needful to prevent the imminent crash-landing of the DSO “pilot” project by launching a thorough public inquiry to unravel the scandalous aspects of the NBC/NTA/ITS implementation of the DSO NIGERIA. Anything short of prompt and transparent review of the situation described in the Dara Report will only confirm that the Nigerian Factor bedevilling the DSO and all the concerned federal authorities is not only an infectious pandemic but also potentially incurable even to the national legislature. In addition, it is advisable to consider the constitution of a body of patriotic, independent, professionals in the broadcast industry to act as implementation vigilante for the DSO NIGERIA project since those who saw some things wrong with it refused to say anything! Meanwhile Tony Dara should not be intimidated as we expect him to complete the revealing investigation by covering the entire spectrum of DSO NIGERIA implementation so far.

     

    • Longwai is a student-broadcaster in Jos.

     

  • Digital Switch Over: Broadcast media to rake in $400m

    Digital Switch Over: Broadcast media to rake in $400m

    Broadcast media will make $400m as a result of digitalisation,  which kicked off in Abuja yesterday.

    President Muhammadu Buhari said Nigeria is “irreversibly committed’’ to meeting the June 2017 deadline for transition from analogue to digital television broadcasting.

    The President spoke at the roll out of Digital Switch Over (DSO) spearheaded by the Ministry of Information and Culture and the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC).

    The June 17, 2017 deadline for transition from analogue to digital television broadcasting in West African countries was set by the World International Telecommunication Union Council.

    With this roll-out, Federal Capital Territory residents will enjoy 30 free to air television channels which  will cover entertainment, sports, news, movies, and others.

    The country had a pilot scheme prior to the official roll-out earlier this year in Jos, Plateau state, with 15 channels.

    Nigeria previously failed in two previous attempts to migrate from analogue to digital broadcasting, first in 2012 and in 2015.

    Nigerians would face interrupted viewing if it fails to migrate next year.

    Represented by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, President Buhari said with DSO, the country stood at the threshold of exciting time for free TV channels, jobs creation, entertainment and commerce.

    He said digitisation would create jobs in the area of contents, software development and production of Set Top Boxes.

    The President added that digitisation would provide platform for film producers and musicians to release their production directly to the platform that will substantially curb piracy.

    “As the doors open for digital transmission, what is important is that it will liberalise access to and increase the versatility of media information.

    “Interactive programming, mobile reception of videos, internet and multimedia base advertising, educative programmes sales and marketing are obvious low hanging fruits,’’ he said.

    The President assured that the DSO rollout will continue in the states until the entire country is covered.

    He appealed to States and Local Government Councils to be actively involved in the projects because of its advantages to the people.

    Minister of Information and Culture Alhaji Lai Mohammed said the broadcast media will be raking in $400 million per annum through audience measurement.

    This, the minister said is apart from the tens of thousands of job opportunities the switch over will usher in.

    He added, “The core principles of Democracy are equality, common participation, total access to information for all citizens, economic empowerment of all participants in the industries and a level playing feed for Nigerian companies and entrepreneurs to build viable businesses.

    “ By these, we are expecting to help diversify our economy by properly exploiting our great talent and creative human and natural resources, which we strongly believe are second to none in Africa.”

    The transition, the minister also said will create  a 100 Billion Naira per annum FreeTV distribution network for Nollywood.

    He explained “We have watched our beloved Nollywood move from VHS tapes to VCD, to DVD and whereas the whole world has moved to digital consumption of content with its attendant benefits and democratisation of distribution, we have been constrained by limited penetration of Internet in our homes. With the middleware in our Stb’s/Receiving equipment, homes will be able to buy and watch the latest Nollywood movies without the need for Internet.  Imagine a film released on Monday morning being immediately available to 24 million plus households at the touch of a button.”

    Chairman Senate Committee on Information and National Orientation, Senator Suleiman Adokwe said DSO would leverage for Nigerians who could not afford Pay-TV.

    NBC Director-General Malam Ishaq Modibbo-Kawu said with the launch, TV viewers in Abuja would have access to 30 free channels.

  • Nigeria committed to deadline for digital switch over – Buhari

    Nigeria committed to deadline for digital switch over – Buhari

    President Muhammadu Buhari said on Thursday in Abuja Nigeria is “irreversibly committed’’ to meeting the June 2017 deadline for transition from analogue to digital television broadcasting.

    The President stated this at the official launch and roll out of Digital Switch Over (DSO) spearheaded by the Ministry of Information and Culture and the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC).

    The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports the June 17, 2017 deadline for transition from analogue to digital television broadcasting in West African countries was set by the World International Telecommunication Union Council.

    Buhari, represented by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, said with DSO, the country stands at the threshold of exciting time for free TV channels, jobs creation, entertainment and commerce.

    He stressed that digitisation will create jobs in the area of contents, software development and production of Set Top Boxes.

    The President added that digitisation would provide platform for film producers and musicians to release their production directly to the platform that will substantially curb piracy.

    “As the doors open for digital transmission, what is important is that it will liberalise access to and increase the versatility of media information.

    “Interactive programming, mobile reception of videos, internet and multimedia base advertising, educative programmes sales and marketing are obvious low hanging fruits,’’ he said.

    The President assured that the DSO rollout will continue in the states until the entire country is covered.

  • Govt must enact laws for digital switch-over

    Govt must enact laws for digital switch-over

    Last month, Nigeria missed the digital switch-over deadline set by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). Chairman, StarTimes, Mr. Xinxing Pang, says for the country to achieve analogue switch-out, government must clamp down on illegal operators in the digital pay TV sector. He says relevant laws will also need to be enacted while adequate funding must be provided. Pang, who was in the country as part of activities to mark the fifth anniversary of the firm’s operations in Nigeria, spoke with reporters in Abuja. Blessing Olaifa and  Jill Okeke, were there.

    Nigeria is said to be a difficult terrain to do business. Do you subscribe to this?

    In order to operate in some areas, we need to be granted licenses to commence operations and sometimes the approval from the National Broadcasting Commission [NBC] actually takes longer time. This is one major reason our DTT deployment appears to be travelling on the slow lane. However, this year, we have been able to set up 16 transmitting sites so that we can reach wider areas and the current coverage will certainly improve. For DTT to work, there must be presence of transmitter in that area and NBC needs to grant us frequency per location and sometimes these takes up to six months. We feel it is too slow as we feel that if we apply for licenses because of the digitisation, we should be able to benefit from it and when it takes six months, the whole year is already gone.

    We need the frequency to be able to operate in those areas. DTT is different from satellite broadcasting where you can operate from one location and reach everywhere. With DTT, for you to reach everybody, you must be in multiple locations.

    Startimes has clocked five years in business in Nigeria, how would you describe the journey so far?

    Generally, in the last five years, the company has been growing in leaps and bounds as you can see. Today, we are one of the largest in the pay digital TV market in the country. Currently our DTT platform covers more than 40 cities in the country and last year we launched our DTH which covers the entire country. Meanwhile we have started introducing more channels even with local content. We have also been training and retraining our workers for better efficiency with richer content and the quality of these contents and the quality of our programme is increasing gradually. Our subscriber base is now up to 2.6 million in the country and that has been achieved within the past five years. While we are growing and developing ourselves, we are also contributing to the Nigerian society. Today we have created direct job of about 1000 and indirect jobs of over 10,000 for Nigerians. And since we started business in Nigeria five years ago, we have also contributed almost N4 billion as tax revenue to the coffers of the government. All these are testimonies of StarTimes’ achievements within our years of operation in the country. Our services are being enjoyed a lot more by users and for the three consecutive years, we have been awarded the most popular operator in the country.

    Geographically, Nigeria is wide. What is the level of reach as a company in the country?

    Right now, we are in 46 locations; we however cover more than 46 cities. Take for example, in Ilorin, the capital of Kwara State, we get as far as to Offa and Omuaran while in Oshogbo, Osun State capital, our coverage gets to as far as Ife and Ilesha.  And in these fringe cities, we intend to improve our coverage. We are in 46 cities but more than 80 cities are benefitting from our services. Actually, we have covered 80 per cent in all the states while our ambition is to be in all the Senatorial zones of the country. It is possible that by the end of this year, we will be in three cities in each of the 36 states. Only about two states are outside our coverage and these are Yobe and Bornu states because of security concerns.  And we shall soon be in the state as soon the security situation improves.

    You just clocked five in Nigeria, in another five years, what are your business plans for the company?

    We have other plans such as improving our DTT networks in order to keep optimising the coverage of the network but since the country is quite big, we have to use the DTH platform as a very good complement to the DTT coverage. The improvement of our network is to promote the popularities of the local content and its development. In order to enable families enjoy digital TV services, we have provided affordable set-top box and also a digital TV set so that every family can afford this and enjoy our services. We are also introducing new programmes which have been provided in our latest bouquets. These bouquets are also affordable for the low income earners.

    You are operating in a competitive environment, yet the price you offer subscribers keep going down, what is the secret? 

    We have lowered our cost so that we can stay in the competition. It is unlike the satellite operators where the cost remains the same no matter their expansion. The same goes for the content fees which is still the same no matter how many people are watching the TV. Here, we need to increase our subscriber base and growth so that we can make profit. The second part is that StarTimes is a high technology enterprise and so therefore, we are involved in research and development as leader in the technology through innovation in designing and producing recast. We hope to use cutting edge technology to lower the cost of just the set-top-boxes. We also have tried to improve our efficiency. We use economies of scale because we are in charge of the technology and we do produce for other people at marginal profit.

    What really do you think is the problem with the inability of the country to meet the digital migration deadline set by ITU?

    Digital migration in the TV industry is not just a simple process as some of you might think. It is like a huge chain that needs adjustment and involves quite a lot in the industry and for different market and entities. This means that all the stakeholders in the process must participate in making it happen because of their different demands. And for StarTimes, we are just a company; what we can do at the moment is the promotion of the digital migration which we have been doing. We cannot make any decision or fully participate in the decision making process. However, there are strange happenings in the digital TV market in the country as some companies are presently operating illegally.

    Secondly, digitalisation is a very complicated process. It consists of several parts such as the shooting, casting, signals from local and states TV stations as well as the private TV and some international channels. We have to aggregate all the signals into one platform. On the same platform, all the channels can be carried in their digital form. Remember that previously, we have been under the analogue system which is just one analogue channel unlike in digital TV where one channel can carry more than 20 channels. At a point, we would advise the government to create some legislation to stop the importation of analogue TV set into the country. It is only when this is done that the digitalisation of the industry can be realised. Also the Nigerian consumers need to be educated on the benefits of digital migration. Also for digitalisation TV to work in this country, government must subsidise the decoder set as it is done in other countries. Digital TV carries rich content, wide coverage and therefore a good marketing strategy must be put in place. Also a professional team which knows the technology, management and operation must be cinstituted. These conditions are really indispensable for the success of digital TV.

    What is your assessment of the market having been around for thses years?

    On operations in Nigeria, we started business in Africa in 2002 and in Nigeria since 2009. We have not stopped promoting the digital migration in the Nigerian market and for StarTimes we have already prepared ourselves for the digital migration. The only issue now is that we cannot decide for the government when they should complete the migration. We wish that the migration can start as soon as possible because we all shall benefit immensely from the migration.

    The issue of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is important as companies are expected to give back to their host communities. What are your firm’s footprints in this area?

    As an enterprise in Nigeria, we have been involved in doing genuine business in compliance with the laws of the land like paying our taxes regularly. Secondly, we have tried to provide high quality product and services to our customers and thirdly we have been providing support to vulnerable communities which we often don’t want to mention in the media.

    Before 2010, the price of the pay TV services was on the higher side with subscription also very high and unaffordable and with the entrance of StarTimes into the market, a lot of Nigerians can now afford digital TV services. This was made possible with StarTimes which forced our competitors to lower their prices. We realised also that this is a major contribution to the society. We feel honoured to have several awards in the few years of our operation. We are the only digital TV station operating in states with less than $1 gross domestic product (GDP). We are ready to get to the poor even though business may not be doing well in those areas. We are also doing a lot in the areas of healthcare and children. We did a lot to create awareness during the Ebola scourge.

    ‘Digital migration in the TV industry is not just a simple process as some of you might think. It is like a huge chain that needs adjustment and involves quite a lot in the industry and for different market and entities. This means that all the stakeholders in the process must participate in the process because of their different demands. And for StarTimes, we are just a company; what we can do at the moment is the promotion of the digital migration which we have been doing. We cannot make any decision or fully participate in the decision making process’

    Sport is an area where pay TV stations appear to be having interest.  What concrete impacts have you made?

    We believe that the German Bundesliga is an exciting football league in European football right now and we have acquired the media right for the next five seasons. With this, we don’t intend to increase the price of our bouquets as we shall be giving the right to air it free to the Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) so that Nigerians can enjoy it. By next week, we shall sign another agreement with another football league in the top five football leagues and with this our sporting content shall hit roof top. We also have the European Cup qualifying series and the qualifiers for the World Cup in Europe and so, altogether there will be more than 500 football matches till 2019. We have concluded the deal with the International Champions Cup for the next five years for the South of the Sahara area. Our platform includes the World Cup Under-20 in the next World Cup in 2017. Our platform is user-friendly to all our customers as our newly launched set top box can receive signal from UHF to DTT.