The National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) has commenced technical and sensitisation training for installers of set-top boxes and associated reception equipment at its Ibadan zonal offices.

The training, which commenced at the weekend, targeted more than 50 technicians and installers drawn from states across the South-West region. According to the Head of the Digital Switchover (DSO) unit and Deputy Director of Public Affairs at the NBC, Mrs Clementine Usman-Wamba, this marks the first in a series of capacity-building exercises designed to ensure the smooth and error-free operation of Nigeria’s long-awaited digital migration.

The DSO programme, Nigeria’s transition from analogue to digital terrestrial television broadcasting, has taken nearly two decades to implement. The country formally adopted the policy in 2008, following the International Telecommunication Union’s (ITU) 2006 directive for member states to complete the switch by June 2015. However, Nigeria missed that deadline, as well as subsequent targets in December 2017 and beyond, due to funding shortfalls, policy inconsistencies, infrastructure deficits, and logistical hurdles. Although pilot rollouts were conducted in Plateau, Lagos, Kano, Enugu, Kwara, Osun, Kaduna, and the Federal Capital Territory, nationwide coverage remained elusive.

After multiple failed attempts and over N60 billion in failed public expenditure investment, the Federal Government, through the NBC and the Nigerian Communications Satellite Limited (NIGCOMSAT), unveiled a renewed strategy in 2025. Dubbed “The Big Picture,” the initiative was nationally launched on June 17, 2026, with a final analogue switch-off scheduled for December 31, 2028.

The new framework adopts a hybrid broadcasting model combining Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT), Direct-to-Home (DTH) satellite delivery via NIGCOMSAT-1R, and Internet Protocol (IP)-based distribution.

This satellite-first approach leverages Nigeria’s sovereign satellite technology to bypass the need for costly transmission towers—reportedly accelerating digital television rollout by over 65 per cent and providing near-instantaneous national coverage.

The FreeTV platform is built on open-standard DVB-S2 technology and is designed to deliver up to 100 free-to-air digital channels with high-quality picture and sound to an estimated 40 million television households nationwide. For terrestrial reception, Nigeria has adopted the DVB-T2 transmission standard with MPEG-4 AVC compression, which supports up to 20 channels per frequency—significantly more efficient than the older DVB-T1 system.