ABUJA, AUGUST 11, 2016 – The Federal Executive Council (FEC) yesterday directed relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to collaborate effectively to ensure Nigeria meets the June 2017 global deadline for migration from analogue to digital broadcasting.They are expected to follow up on the success and ensure that Nigeria is not left out of worldwide digital broadcasting by June next year.
Briefing State House correspondents at the end of the FEC meeting presided by President Muhammadu Buhari, Lai Mohammed, minister of Information and Culture, said that the issue was the only discussion during the meeting.
According to him, the migration in line with the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) will enable Nigerians continue to receive television signals after the deadline.
He said that the pilot scheme for the migration, which was carried out in Jos, Plateau State in April using special set-up boxes to provide free digital signals of 15 broadcast stations, has been successful.
He also explained that the funds for the project about N34 billion are available and contracts have been awarded for the supply of the digital set-up boxes at affordable prices to Nigerians.
The Minister explained that the new digital migration policy entails that signal distributors will thenceforth be solely responsible for sending out broadcast signals to the public consumers while broadcast content will be the responsibility of station owners.
He said: “The main highlights of today’s council meeting are the swearing in of the four special advisers and permanent secretary for foreign affairs after which only one single council memo was considered and that council memo was a note in respect of an update from my ministry in the process of migrating from analogue to digital broadcasting, as you are aware the ITU gave a deadline to migrate from analogue to digital broadcasting June 2017.
“Already 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 set up 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.
