A stakeholder with four decades of experience in Nigeria's broadcast, media, production, and content creation industry, Aderemi Ogunpitan, has called on the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) to intervene in the country's FreeTV platform and the broader Digital Switch Over (DSO) process.
In a statement released yesterday, Ogunpitan described the ongoing discourse surrounding Nigeria's FreeTV platform and DSO as both necessary and healthy. He noted that it is encouraging to see stakeholders from broadcasting, production, advertising, and policy circles engaging more openly on the future of television, audience measurement, platform economics, content sustainability, and public accountability.
However, he emphasized that recent industry concerns necessitate greater clarity from the government and relevant public institutions. According to Ogunpitan, Nigerians have moved beyond the question of whether digital migration has technically been launched or is about to be launched under FreeTV. The more pressing issue is whether the so-called Digital Switch Over genuinely fulfills the original public-interest objectives of Nigeria's DSO: affordability, accessibility, sustainability, transparency, spectrum efficiency, and long-term industry growth.
A recent letter from the Broadcasting Organisations of Nigeria (BON) to the Director-General of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) raised serious issues that now require urgent public clarification. BON's position is that what is being assembled through NigComSat appears not to be a Digital Terrestrial Television switch-over, but the launch of a Direct-to-Home satellite aggregation platform.
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU)'s GE06 Agreement and Nigeria's 2012 White Paper on the DSO defined digital migration as the transition from Analog Terrestrial Television. The objectives included accommodating more television channels through MPEG-4 compression and releasing the 700/800 MHz spectrum, previously occupied by analogue television, for mobile broadband use. The 2012 White Paper, approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) and gazetted, reportedly remains the principal legal framework for the DSO in Nigeria. It also outlined required industry components, including licensed signal distributors, set-top-box manufacturers, middleware providers, and a multi-tier licensing structure for national, regional, state, city, and community broadcasters.
Ogunpitan asserted: “Against this background, it is important to clarify whether the present FreeTV arrangement is still a Digital Terrestrial Television migration process, or whether policy has shifted to satellite Direct-to-Home distribution and OTT streaming. DTH satellite broadcasting and OTT streaming are not the same as DTT. Many Nigerian television stations already transmit on NigComSat and operate OTT platforms. Aggregating those channels on dedicated satellite transponders and branding the arrangement as DSO may not, in itself, amount to the Digital Switch Over originally contemplated under Nigeria’s legal and policy framework.”
He added that this issue is not merely technical; it affects law, public funds, regulatory integrity, spectrum policy, consumer access, content economics, and the future of local broadcasting. There is also a serious concern that NBC, as the statutory regulator, may now be functioning as a content aggregator on FreeTV. If correct, this could create a conflict of interest between NBC's regulatory role and its apparent operational or commercial role within the FreeTV ecosystem.
Therefore, Ogunpitan requested SERAP's assistance in compelling the relevant government agencies and public institutions to provide clear answers under the Freedom of Information Act.
