BON Bemoans Lack of Clear Roadmap on Digital Switch Over

Olawale Ajimotokan

The Broadcasting Organisation of Nigeria (BON) has lamented the lack of a clear roadmap on Nigeria’s transition to Digital Switch Over (DSO) by the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC).

The concern was conveyed by the Chairman of BON, Mr. John Momoh, at the 68th General Assembly of the BON in Abuja yesterday.

Nigeria has failed to meet the June 2017 deadline to transit from analogue to digital in broadcasting.

According to Momoh, apart from disruptive innovations, the industry owners are displeased the huge disparity in licence fees between public and private licensees.

He also said the regulator is silent on many critical issues affecting its members, key of which what is accruable to broadcast organisations who will be vacating frequencies in accordance with the White Paper on DSO.

The other issue is the fee to be paid to signal distributors after the switch over what happens to pay-TV services currently operating on the DTT platform.

He also said broadcasters were contending with dwindling advertising revenue in the face of increasing operating expenses, mounting an unresolved industry debt, and a mandatory reduction of transmitting power, while still paying the same licence fee for the original power.

Momoh noted that the issues have, however, been discussed with the NBC as well as the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed.

He said disruption has suddenly engendered a complete disturbance, disordering and disarranging of the way broadcasters conduct their business

He also identified some of the digital predators to include Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Hulu and other “over the top” players.

“To say broadcasting has changed since the establishment of BON three decades ago, would be grossly understating the dynamic nature of our industry. The correct statement would be that broadcasting has changed radically, Momoh said.