Andrew Hanlon, chief executive officer of TVC Communications, Lagos, Nigeria, in this interview with IFEOMA OKEKE, spoke on issues around the proposed Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) which may soon come on stream in Nigeria. Excerpts:
What is the BON annual general meeting hosted in TVC recently all about?
It was the Broadcasters of Nigeria Annual Conference. They do it every year and we are asked to host it this year as one of the members of Broadcasters of Nigeria (BON). The idea behind the conference this year is to discuss the plans of Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT). Most Nigerians know nothing about this and most Nigerians love their television. You get free TV and you can watch several television channels but the way that you receive those is going to change because your old aerial will not work anymore. When the government switches off the analogue signals, they have to get a separate box to receive television channels like you do now. The question is: who is going to pay for the box? How much will the box cost? Lagos State government may subsidise the cost of the box. The box could cost between 10 to 20 US dollars. That is a lot of money for people who don’t have it. All of a sudden the signals will go off and people will be thinking how to get their free TV channels back. So, this is what DTT is.
The Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) has been really slow to take-off in Nigeria. What do you think the problem is?
It is the government that is introducing this system, so the Federal Government is rolling this out in the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC). So, it is their project, we as the broadcasters have to shut down our transmitters on the day we are told to do so and hand our pictures over to the new signal transmitter which is licensed by the Federal Government. So, as a broadcaster, we are very nervous about this. Here we own our signal and we are in charge and we are on the transmitter. But the day it is going to come, possibly, next year and the government says we must turn off our transmitters, give them our pictures and we will put them through our new digital transmitter, which will be received all over Nigeria.
What are the advantages of the new DTT?
There are huge advantages with the new DTT. The picture quality is much better and you will get more channels. This is really good for TV viewers but there are still a lot of questions around how viewers are going to get pictures, who will buy the box? How much will the box cost? For every TV you have in your hands, you need a separate box. Each box could cost between 10 to 20 dollars. A lot of people cannot afford this. Me as a TV CEO I’m worried that if people don’t have the boxes they can’t view us and I am going to lose. The advertisers are going to say to me that I have lost all my viewers. We as the broadcasters need to be sure that our signals are going to be put out there on the system and we need to know that the viewers all over the country will be able to receive the signal as well. So, the government needs to launch a huge educational campaign to educate viewers on what is going to happen. People in Nigeria do not know anything about this. What happens in other countries is that the government would launch a very big advertising campaign to help people understand the changes. It is a big project and the government has to educate people. We broadcasters have to make sure that we are ready to hand over signals to this new transmission network by government.
What does this mean to you as a business person?
I am very nervous about this because we have to turn off the transmitter here and all the other channels will be told likewise but we will then need to know at that point that everybody will receive us on the new digital transmission system and everybody has the black boxes in their houses. If they don’t have the black boxes they can’t receive us. To get the black boxes, they have to pay for the box or potentially the box will be subsidised by the state governments or Federal Governments. People need to know that this is coming and may happen within the next 12 months. We welcome the development as long as it is properly planned and everybody knows what is going on.
How have you been able to navigate through the economic challenges in the country to thrive as a television station?
I came here two-and-half years ago but the recession hasn’t really ended. So, what we have done to try and navigate our way through the bad economic times is that we have had to be clever. We have had to work hard. We have tried to make this an attractive company to do business with and we have succeeded in that. We have grown the business in the last three years despite very slow economic growth in the country. We are working harder to create more employment even though we are in tough economic times. We are succeeding but it takes a lot of hard work and great commitment from all the employees.
