Digital Switch Over, DSO, in Nigeria would grow the TV advertising market by 400 million dollars annually through audience measurement, according to the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed.
The minister made this known on Wednesday, December 20 at the inauguration of the switch over from analogue to Digital Terrestrial Broadcasting in Ilorin to cover Kwara.
The facilities for the switch over were provided by Integrated Television Services (ITS), the signal distributor for the Ilorin DSO.
The minister said the DSO would also create a N100 billion per annum FreeTV distribution network for Nollywood.
To achieve these, he said government would support the Nation’s Broadcasting Commission (NBC) in its efforts to create a viable currency by which producers of content and channels could be re-enumerated.
Mohammed said that with the middleware in the Set Top Boxes, homes
would be able to buy and watch the latest Nollywood movies without the
need for internet.
“Imagine a film released on Monday morning being immediately available to all the households in Kwara at the touch of a button.
“That’s the kind of experience we are talking about,’’ he said.
The minister said the DSO would create tens of thousands of jobs through Technical and Manufacturing opportunities.
“Set Top Box assembling and ultimately manufacturing is an irreversible mandate by the government to the industry. We expect this to extend very quickly to local Smart TV and Tablet manufacturing,’’ he said.
He noted that the Ilorin inauguration (DSO) had put the government back on track in digitisation efforts.
He implored the ITS to rapidly extend the digital television experience beyond Ilorin and its environs, “so that the good people of Kwara can reap the digital benefits.’’
