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From
left: Minister of State for Industry Trade and Investment, Aisha Abubakar;
Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Hajiya Khadija Bukar Ibrahim; Minister
of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed; and Minister of State for Budget and
National Planning Hajiya Zainab Ahmed, during a jointly briefing with State
House Correspondent after the Federal Executive Council meeting in Abuja
yesterday
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The Federal Government
has licensed 13 set-up box manufacturers and approved three digital signal
distributors in an effort to fast-track the process to meet the June 2017
deadline for transition from analogue to digital television broadcasting in
Nigeria.
Daily
Trust report continues:
Minister
of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed said this yesterday while
speaking with newsmen in Abuja on Saturday’s pilot roll-out of the process in
Jos, Plateau State.
The
minister said government would soon engage all stakeholders to fine-tune the
process and continue the build-up to the deadline. He said each of the
distributors had paid ₦600 million for the license.
“To
ensure a smooth roll-out in Jos, the federal government is giving out 200,000
boxes free of charge to residents. The Plateau State government has agreed to
buy 300,000 boxes for its citizens. Each box costs ₦1,500 only, because the
federal government has highly subsidized the actual cost, which is about ₦10,000
per box. After the successful DSO roll-out in Jos, we are now moving to Abuja
and then Lagos, before the DSO train goes across the country.”
He
described the digital switch over as an evolving media landscape that would revolutionize
television broadcasting in the country and the dawn of a new era for
government, TV channels, producers, advertisers and the Nigerian TV customer.
Alhaji Mohammed added that the process, among other benefits, would be of
optimum benefit to musicians and movie producers, as they can now wrong-foot
those who had been pirating their works by releasing such works directly to
millions of homes using the digital platform.
“Also, the capacity generated by the digital broadcasting technology allows for more players to be licensed for the provision of many more television services, compared to the analogue broadcasting technology. This means more choice for the viewers, with the possibility of services being licensed by genre, for example, musical, news, gospel, movie and so on,” he added.
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