The Director General of National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), Mallam Is’haq Modibbo Kawu has said all issues raised under observations and recommendations by stakeholders during the just concluded Broadcast Stakeholders’ Meeting in Abuja will be given due attention by the Commission.
While noting that stakeholders are the heartbeat of broadcasting, he assured that NBC will do everything within its powers to deepen broadcast industry for the interest of the nation.
A copy of the Communiqué made available to Business Hilights showed that parts of the observations made by experts during the meeting include broadcasters request to be considered in the dividend from sale of spectrum to cushion the cost of Content production and other DSO Challenges.
Participants also recommended a review of the DSO business Model to ensure the success of the scheme and noted that Broadcast License should be Provisional with a 5-year term.
According to them, due to convergence of technology, some of the hate speech on social media infiltrates into the broadcast media and that even the current sanction regime in the regulation of Hate speech and inciting Comments are relatively low.
Stakeholders also noted that broadcasters may have to pay two license fees in the DSO (to NBC & to BSD). However, the two Fees shall be slightly lower than what they currently pay as License Fee;
On key resolutions made arising from the recommendations, broadcasters among other things agreed that broadcasters owing license fees should pay- up on or before 15th March 2017 or have their stations shutdown.
They also concurred that Broadcast License is Provisional with 5-Year lifespan; therefore, Licensees should apply for renewal six months before the expiration of their license as contained in the terms of License.
Other resolutions include that City Based FM stations shall ensure that their signals are limited to assigned areas only; That Stations with transmitters higher than the allotted transmission power have six months window period to procure and install 2 kilowatt transmitter and revert to the terms of their license or have them decommissioned; That henceforth no Licensee should install a transmitter with capacity beyond power allotted in the license schedule.
Also agreed is that stations without Aviation Warning Light (AWL)on their Masts must have them installed on or before 28th of February, 2017 and that all Stations without a functional Off-Air Recording facility must procure and install one on or before 31st of March, 2017 or face shutdown.
Broadcasters at the summit also agreed that Transfer of License is prohibited and 70 per cent of Content in DSO shall be Local Content. And the collection of TV and Radio License fee would be pooled to support content production.
Another key decision taken was that the next phase of DSO Journey shall be six states taken simultaneously, namely; Kaduna for North-West; Kwara for North-Central; Gombe for North-East; Enugu for South-East; Osun for South-West; and Delta for South-South.
The stakeholders also called on the NBC to work with stakeholders in the DSO value-chain should harness the digital economy to generate jobs for Nigerian Youths.
Also agreed was that the NBC should liaise with State and Local governments to be partners in the DSO in order to subsidize the STB for their People and that STB manufactures shall graduate to manufacturing Digital Compliant Television sets after the DSO.
Another critical decision taken during the summit is that Channel Sharing and other collaborative arrangements under the Digital ecosystem are being studied and that all Television transmission would go through a broadcast signal distributor of their choice.
