Imported User:
The Chairman, Broadcasting Organisations of Nigeria (BON), Alhaji Abubakar Jijiwa, has stressed the need for proprietors of broadcast stations to maintain the new deadline for complete digitisation of broadcasting in the country.
Jijiwa, who said this in Abuja on Monday in an interaction with newsmen, noted that the issue would be one of the features of the forthcoming national broadcast summit in Lagos.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the presidential committee on Nigeria’s digitisation exercise has fixed the first quarter of 2013 as new deadline for full digitisation in the country.
The same committee had fixed June 17, 2012 as deadline for all broadcast stations to switch to digital broadcasting.
The chairman, who frowned at persistent changes in deadline for migration, said that Nigeria could not afford to be left behind in the global migration to digital broadcasting.
He said that the country could only attain the feat of full migration if all stakeholders work with datesset by government.
Jijiwa blamed the slow pace of the exercise in the country partly on the inability of state-owned broadcast stations to acquire digital broadcast equipment.
``For me as chairman of BON, I believe that all stations in the country must maintain the deadline for digitisation.
``My major area of concern as BON chairman is to get the state-owned stations to be digitally compliant, a number of states are on it, while others have yet to comply.
``But when the governors and their proprietors realise that the journey to digitisation is a journey of no return, then they will fast track their process of digitisation,” he said.
He said that government in its wisdom has given all stakeholders in the sector adequate time to implement their individual programmes of digitisation.
On the issues of the acquisition of digital receivers, the BON chairman noted that the appropriate authorities were making adequate efforts for the purchase of set-top boxes ahead of the migration.
On the forthcoming summit, Jijiwa said that the lingering issues in Nigeria’s bid to attain full digitisation by the first quarter of 2013 would feature prominently at the forum.
He said that veterans in the broadcast industry would share their experiences on a wide range of issues.
The event organised by BON and its partners would hold on May 11 in Lagos.
