60 free TV channels for Lagos residents as state begins Digital Switchover

Lagos State on Thursday switched on to the free Open Digital Terrestrial Television.

The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, who launched the project in Lagos, described the switchon of the state to digital broadcasting as unique and epochal because it marked the first time the Digital Switch Over (DSO) project would be beaming 60 choice channels to television households.

The DSO project will move all broadcasting stations in country from analogue to digital.

The project, which has so far gulped N9.4bn since 2015, was temporarily stopped in

February 2018 following a corruption allegation against some officials and private sector players in the project.

However, the project, expected to create one million jobs in the next three years, was started again yesterday with launch of its second phase with digital switch-on of Lagos.

Mohammed noted that digital broadcasting prepares the ground for national development.

“In addition, a large number of the 1 million jobs to be created by the DSO project in the next three years will come from Lagos”, the minister said.

He said though it took the digital television train over three years to arrive in Lagos

State, from its last stop in Osun State, the train is now ready to move faster.

He said: “The DSO train has now changed from narrow gauge to standard gauge, meaning it’ll move faster to cover 13 states across the country this year alone in the second phase of the DSO rollout, which begins today. From Lagos, the DSO train heads to Kano State on June 3; Rivers on July 8; Yobe on July 15; Gombe on August 12; Imo on August 24; Akwa Ibom on August 31; Oyo on September 9; Jigawa on September 23; Ebonyi on October 17; Katsina on October 21;

Anambra on November 4 and Delta on November 18.”