A Stakeholder in Nigeria’s broadcast, media, production and content creation industry for the past 40 years, Aderemi Ogunpitan, has called on the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) to wade into Nigeria’s FreeTV platform and the wider Digital Switch Over (DSO) process.
 
In a statement made available to The Guardian yesterday, he described the ongoing conversation around Nigeria’s FreeTV platform and DSO as both necessary and healthy.
 
“It is encouraging that stakeholders across broadcasting, production, advertising and policy are beginning to engage more openly on the future of television, audience measurement, platform economics, content sustainability and public accountability.
 
“However, recent industry concerns have made it necessary to seek greater clarity from government and the relevant public institutions,” he stated.

According to him, Nigerians have moved beyond whether digital migration has technically been launched or is about to launch under the aegis of FreeTV.
 
The more important issue, he added, is whether what is being presented as the Digital Switch Over genuinely delivers the original public-interest objectives of Nigeria’s DSO: affordability, accessibility, sustainability, transparency, spectrum efficiency, and long-term industry growth.
 
A recent letter by the Broadcasting Organisations of Nigeria (BON) to the Director-General of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) raises serious issues that now require urgent public clarification.
 
BON’s position is that what is being put together through NigComSat appears not to be a Digital Terrestrial Television switch-over, but the launch of a Direct-to-Home satellite aggregation platform.
 
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU)’s GE06 Agreement and Nigeria’s 2012 White Paper on the DSO defined digital migration as the transition from Analog Terrestrial Television. The objectives included accommodating more television channels through MPEG-4 compression and releasing the 700/800 MHz spectrum, previously occupied by analogue television, for mobile broadband use.
 
The 2012 White Paper, approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) and gazetted, reportedly remains the principal gazetted legal framework for the DSO in Nigeria. It also set out required industry components, including licensed signal distributors, set-top-box manufacturers, middleware providers, and a multi-tier licensing structure for national, regional, state, city and community broadcasters.
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He asserted: “Against this background, it is important to clarify whether the present FreeTV arrangement is still a Digital Terrestrial Television migration process, or whether policy has shifted to satellite Direct-to-Home distribution and OTT streaming. DTH satellite broadcasting and OTT streaming are not the same as DTT. Many Nigerian television stations already transmit on NigComSat and operate OTT platforms. Aggregating those channels on dedicated satellite transponders and branding the arrangement as DSO may not, in itself, amount to the Digital Switch Over originally contemplated under Nigeria’s legal and policy framework.
 
“This issue is not merely technical. It affects law, public funds, regulatory integrity, spectrum policy, consumer access, content economics and the future of local broadcasting. There is also a serious concern that NBC, as the statutory regulator, may now be functioning as a content aggregator on FreeTV. If correct, this could create a conflict of interest between the NBC’s regulatory role and its apparent operational or commercial role within the FreeTV ecosystem.”
 
He, therefore, requested SERAP’s assistance in compelling the relevant government agencies and public institutions to provide clear answers under the Freedom of Information Act.