Minister to Set Top Box manufacturers: Give us Multi-Purpose TV

Tom Okpe, Abuja

The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has challenged the manufacturers of Set Top Boxes and Decoders in the country to produce a multi-purpose television set that will help in transforming the Television experience of Nigerians.

He said the transition from analogue to digital broadcasting in the country is aimed at giving Nigerians a total television viewing experience that will transform their lives and change TV viewing forever.

The Minister, speaking in Calabar on Thursday (Yesterday), when he commissioned the ultra modern Digital Set Top Box manufacturing plant, owned by the Gospel Digital Technology said: “I have continued to reiterate that the quality of the service we launched goes to confirm that our objective is not to just move Nigerians from analogue to digital in a simple technical sense, but to improve the viewing experience and give them increased variety of channels and services.

“The average home today in order to have access to the various types of entertainment will require a television, a Set Top Box and a VCD or DVD player. This era is about to end. I am challenging the industry to move to one device in the home, the television. Give us
a TV with a built-in decoder and the requisite middle-ware inside it, being able to access Nollywood releases with or without the internet, and with a remote control that can convert the TV into a computer.

“Please not for the rich, but for every Nigerian home. With that we will have succeeded in the reduction of the cost of access to television, information and education”, he said.

The Minister commends Gospel Digital Technology for building the country’s largest electronic manufacturing and assembly plant, saying that the investors and the managers of the manufacturing plant have exhibited absolute confidence, first in the future and economy prosperity of our beloved country, and of course in the Digital Switch Over (DSO) program.

“Going by its achievements in so short a time, the company’s vision of becoming the leading manufacturer of household electronic video, home entertainment and electrical appliances in Africa is very much within its reach”, the Minister said.

Present at the commissioning were the Executive Governor of Cross River State, Prof. Ben Ayade; Chairman of Senate Committee on Information, Senator Suleiman Adokwe; Senator Shehu Sani, Senator Samuel Anyanwu; Senator Mao Ohuabunwa and the Director-General of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), Mala, Is’haq Modibo Kawu