FG may restructure licensing procedure in broadcast industry

Christian Okeke, Abuja - 30.06.2009

Indications emerged, on Monday, that the Federal Government might restructure the framework for granting licence in the broadcast industry to accommodate a two-category licences of Broadcasting Content Licence (BCL) and Broadcasting Signal Distribution Licence (BSDL)

This is even as the Federal Government, through the Presidential Advisory Committee (PAC), urged the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) to achieve migration from analogue to digital broadcasting system before the 2012 deadline given by President Umaru Yar’Adua.

Speaking while presenting the committee’s report to the Minister of Information and Communications, Professor Dora Akunyili, the chairman of PAC, Isaac Wakombo, who advocated the restructuring of the licensing, said commencing the migration to digital system ahead of 2012 would guarantee fast perfection of the system.

He said there was the need to also ensure that the process conformed with International Telecommunications Union (ITU) standards which would not exclude the activities of the other regulatory agencies.