Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed says lack of financial/ technical means and political will are responsible for the slow migration from analogue to digital television broadcasting in Africa.The minister stated this while declaring open the Digital Broadcasting Africa Forum, 2016 in Lagos on Thursday.
The forum with the theme: “Pan-Africa Transition: Achieving Digital Migration Success”, is organised by Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO).
“So far, it is clear that for most African countries, migrating from analogue to digital television broadcasting has been a rather slow process.
“The challenges have been many and similar. However, our experience of the digital age with other sectors such as mobile telephony or the Internet has been vastly positive.
“Therefore, we need not be convinced anymore of the contribution a digital broadcasting environment would bring to our citizens and our economies’’, he said.
Mohammed reiterated that with the successful roll out the pilot phase of the DSO in Jos on April 30, Nigeria was committed to meeting the June 17, 2017 deadline.
“Here in Nigeria, we are working round the clock to ensure that we meet the ECOWAS set deadline.
“We are fully aware of the economic and social dividends that broadcasting avails to our society.
“So, we are doing all we can to ensure that we have more than the critical talent mass to produce the needed quality content to respond to the needs of our citizens in their diversity.
“We are putting the necessary facilities in place to make digital broadcasting accessible to all, including subsidy and licensing provisions for set top boxes’’, he said.
Mohammed said the launch of analogue terrestrial broadcasting in many African countries in the ’70s and ’80s was a symbolic event.
He recalled that only a select few could afford a television set in their homes and had to buy a video recorder to make it functional in those days.
He said the free-to-air terrestrial digital broadcasting would change the social imbalance dramatically.
The minister also underscored the need for investment in local content production that would unleash the creative energies of youths, in addition to creating jobs
He said a number of sectors, including education, health, tourism, and transport stood to benefit from the higher channel capacity which a digital terrestrial environment would provide.
“With more relevant television content about these areas of our societies, the more these societies will gain in harmony, efficiency and productivity.
“Indeed, with more health information, it is reasonable to expect that preventive medicine can be significantly improved, reducing the growing burden on our health systems.
“Likewise, the more adequate educational content can be broadcast for parents, teachers, children, school managers and other related groups, the more supportive our education systems will be”, he said
The minister congratulated the CTO for organising the event and charged participants to come up with recommendations for prompt switch over across the continent.
The Secretary General of CCO, Shola Taylor commended the minister for his outstanding passion to DSO in Nigeria.
He said that 10 years after African leaders signed the international treaty on switch over to digital broadcasting, not much had been achieved in many countries.
He stated that the spectrum was underutilised in Africa, but with successful switch over to digital broadcasting, it would give opportunity to billions of people to have access to internet.
Taylor called on African leaders to establish Local Content Development Fund for DSO and promote enabling regulatory environment for hitch-free roll out.
