One hundred and twenty countries, including Nigeria, had at a conference of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva in 2006 signed a treaty, which set June 17, 2015 deadline for African, European and Middle Eastern Region 1 countries to migrate to digital television.
When the deadline expires, analogue signals, which enable television viewers to see pictures from local stations will cease to exist and the screens will go blank. Only viewers who are already receiving digital signals through pay-TV providers would continue to have access to television broadcasting.
To continue to watch news and programmes on free-to-air local stations, all television owners must buy set-top boxes (STB) and plug into their television sets. The STB receives and decodes digital signals, allowing picture to appear on the screen.
The Federal Government was expected to, in line with the Geneva agreement, implement the switchover process in Nigeria by setting local deadline for the switchover, ensuring standards of equipment to be used by broadcast stations and television consumers, making STB available and affordable, engaging in massive awareness campaign as well as preventing scammers from taking advantage of the migration to swindle citizens.
As a follow-up to the Geneva treaty, the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission (NBC) had in 2007 set up a Digital Implementation Team (Digiteam) to develop a framework for the digital migration. The committee submitted its report in June 2009, but government did not issue any White Paper on the report until last year.
Since then activities have lulled with majority of the citizens being in the dark on the analogue switchover, which many European and Asian as well as African countries have either implemented or are on the verge of doing so.
At a digital dialogue conference held last week in Dubai, participants from Nigeria expressed concern that with the 2015 deadline inching close, very little appears to have been done to prepare an estimated 24 million Nigerian television households for the change.
The digital dialogue conference, according to its convener, was an opportunity to examine Africa’s preparation for the migration.
The Digital Dialogue Dubai 2013, the third in the series sponsored by global pay-TV giant, Multichoice, featured experts from across the globe and audience that included operators and media personnel from many African countries.
While the Nigerian public largely remains unaware of the digital migration deadline, a number of African countries have made substantial progress.
For instance in his paper, an expert at the National Communications Secretariat, Daniel Obam stated that Kenya had adopted a phased migration, which would see 10 cities switching over between January this year and June 2014. As part of the plan Nairobi and its environs would migrate on December 13, 2013.
Obam emphasized the importance of countries keeping to international agreements, noting that to have a successful analogue switchover, firm policy decisions were required. He also stressed the need to set a timetable and to keep to the deadline as well as to put in place a scheme that would guarantee availability and affordability of set-top boxes for television households.
The Manager, Engineering at the National Communications Authority, Ghana, Edmund Fianko, while appraising efforts to harmonise STB and receiver standards in West Africa countries also expressed the need for governments to commit resources required to meet the deadline.
“It’s a difficult target, not that it’s impossible, but to meet the deadline, there is need for serious commitment by the governments and all other stakeholders,” Fianko stated.
He spoke about joint efforts by the West African countries to have minimum specifications for integrated receiver equipment to create economies of scale and drive down prices.
The specifications were expected to have been approved by ICT ministers from the West African region at a meeting in Banjul, Gambia last Friday.
Giving an insight into how United Kingdom accomplished its switchover between 2005 and 2012, Mike Hughes who was broadcast director at Digital UK said the implementation team comprised BBC, ITV 4, FIVE, S4/C, Teletext, SDN, arQiva, and two representatives of manufacturers and retailers.
The team had budgets for: Communications (£201million) realized from BBC license fee; Operations (£31million) from broadcasters; The help scheme (supporting those who may be at risk) £603million from BBC license fee. The funding for high power DTT network, that is, upgrade to the transmission network, which was about £700million came from broadcasters.
The implementation also included a communications model, which comprised national, regional communications, community support and 1-on-1 help.
According to him, the media, onscreen, in print and on-line, had important role to play in helping viewers to understand and get through the process.
“Make decisions as early as possible, fix date and stick to it. You can make plans but the most important is in carrying viewers along. If this doesn’t happen there will be potential for backlash,” Hughes counselled.
In another presentation, Anna Aguilar of global consulting group, Deloitte identified economic benefits of digital migration to include multiplicity of channels that would boost content, advertising revenue as well as generate employment opportunities in the broadcast and entertainment sectors.
Culled from Sun
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