6 states to switchover to digital broadcasting April – Minister

The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has announced simultaneous switch over to digital broadcasting of six states, one each in the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria by April.

He stated this on Thursday in Abuja at a public hearing of the House of Representatives’ Ad Hoc Committee investigating the Digital Switch Over (DSO) in Nigeria.

Mohammed reiterated Federal Government’s irreversible commitment to DSO, stressing that he will not want to say the June 20 deadline is impossible.

He told the lawmakers that 13 companies had already set up manufacturing plants to produce Set-up boxes which he described as gate way to the digital era.

The minister noted that the switch over will be by far cheaper than subscribing to any digital T.V.

Mohammed emphasised that the switch from analogue to digital would result in better content, an increased number of programmes as well as transmission of images and sound in high-definition.

He added that apart from employment generation, DSO will phase out the challenges of piracy.

The minister also disclosed that N10 billion was left out of the N34 billion seed money budgeted for DSO in 2014.

Mohammed explained that the N10 billion was not for set-up boxes alone but the entire DSO.

However, he told lawmakers and other stakeholders at the investigative hearing of the need to tinker with the DSO business model inherited from the previous administration, if things must work well.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that the switchover from analogue to digital began in Nigeria in April 2016.

The federal government launched the pilot phase in Jos, where the country’s first TV station was launched, and then in December 2016 in Abuja.

The switchover from analogue to digital is a response to the International Broadcasting Union which mandated that all countries transform to avoid signal interference.

NAN also reports that Enugu, Kwara and Delta are among the six states to switch from analogue to digital broadcasting in April.