Broadcast digitisation: the sky is falling

So ignorant are the masses it is going to affect most, that they presently do not give a damn. Will it hit them?When Nigeria switches over from analogue to digital terrestrial TV broadcasting, the first “victims” will be the multitude of owners of television sets among the country’s population of 170 million or more. Most […]

So ignorant are the masses it is going to affect most, that they presently do not give a damn. Will it hit them?
When Nigeria switches over from analogue to digital terrestrial TV broadcasting, the first “victims” will be the multitude of owners of television sets among the country’s population of 170 million or more. Most of them own analogue television sets that will overnight become obsolete and literally useless. Already in many homes, the analogue TV sets are antique objects purchased with life savings, in homes where retirees are the bread winners. Even if they have caring children, it needs to be imagined the misery that many such families will be subjected to when on the day of the cut over, the sets go blind, as the diagnosis often is to the technician. “Our TV no dey see picture again”.
Because policy makers are now mainly concerned with the politics and finances of licensing and infrastructure acquisition, no one talks about the impact it will have on the common man, as the inevitable beneficiary from digitisation. This falling sky will hit us simple folk, and hit us real bad. Overnight, there will evolve hundreds of channels to pick and choose and unless the policy makers show compassion in addressing importation of domestic TV sets and easing public acquisition, we are certain to suffer pangs of sudden growth of choice and inadequate resources. We need a baseline data of how many TV subscribers will suffer loss of their valued possession as a result of this policy execution. Help is needed in recovering some value as well as securing an environmentally acceptable way of disposing of the monumental e-waste that is imminent. We also need to assist income acquisition in view of the impending new temptations.
What happened in many countries that have gone ahead of Nigeria may inevitably serve as a good lesson – a simulcast service is run by TV stations such that a broadcast is made available to viewers in both analogue and digital at the same time, phasing out the analogue gradually. The ambitious desire was to manufacture the main device that would convert and enable viewers receive digital signals on analogue TV sets, funnily called Set-Top Boxes. For TV owners, buying a set-top-box is the practical demonstration that they are partakers of millennial transformation of the digital age in Nigeria. As we drift towards the d-day of the digital switch on, there does not seem to appear, either dialogue or strategising that would ensure quality, efficiency and affordability, or even above all, local manufacture of set-top-boxes, given the awesome quantity required, and the attendant value added in creation of labour opportunities.
Of Nigeria’s many TV stations, how many are ready or even likely to be ready for the digital cutover? At any function in Nigeria, we can readily see that a great majority of TV programme producers and providers are yet to have the basic requisites for the impending change. Thus we can imagine the size of the challenge we are faced with, from cameras to editing slabs, studio equipment and transmitters, none of which are manufactured in Nigeria, our starting point is going to be basic.
Fundamentally,  government, through the National Broadcasting Commission, should strictly enforce standards in equipment and content. When the digital switch over is attained, a vista of opportunities will blossom through the capacity for many channels, requiring that the content development sector is addressed same time as we are addressing technical infrastructure, to avoid a high technological setting, into which poor substandard quality content is being fed.
On all of these, the supervising body the NBC can reconfigure even if it dragged its feet and wobbled. But worrisome is the fact that there are pointers to flouting of best industry practice in the issuance of licences, which if not attended to, can challenge the integrity of the Digital Switch Over. The National interest is at stake. It is understood that 3 licences have been offered supposedly after rigorous and seemingly transparent bidding process learning from the flaws in the allocation of GSM licences. Understandably, the first licence took account of the national interest and was taken up by the consortium of MTS made up of indigenous broadcasters including the Nigerian Television Authority. Sadly from goings on, a scenario similar to the one playing out at the Glass House in the Nigerian Football Federation may be repeated to the detriment of the Digital Switch Over, undesirable for a process of global importance.
Pinnacle Communi-cations Limited, earlier announced as the winner of the 2nd licence in a transparent bid process paid N600m and was issued the licence, whereas GOTV a subsidiary of the South African-owned MULTICHOICE Nigeria was suddenly granted a licence in total flouting of the due process. It means that its flight even in the mobile TV platform for all this time was an ignored jumping of the gun. This type of disadvantage to indigenous companies in inexplicable and certainly raises eyebrows. More so, I understand that the three licences were disproportionately charged to the disadvantage of the indigenous player. Besides there is already national angst about capital flight to South Africa on account of the enormous raking of profits by digital satellite player DSTV. Nigeria, thanks to our early independence is technically disadvantaged in the broadcast industry and even more so in content generation. Thus while South African players are already light years ahead, our lack of patriotic will has conceded so much advantage to them that it can be said that Nigeria does not even have a toehold. This is not acceptable.
The NBC must act in the march to the digital switchover expected in June 2015, with Nigeria in mind.