Digital TV regime gold mine for content developers – Adom-Otchere

Broadcast Journalist, Paul Adom-Otchere, says the shift from analogue to digital television, presents a huge opportunity for content developers to make more money.

This he said will be achieved if good content is produced for television programming, since viewers will have an array of television channels to choose from.

This means that the best content attracts more attention; and will generate revenue through pay per view arrangements.

According to Mr. Adom-Otchere, the key characteristics of digital TV are that, all TV stations can be seen nationwide, all TV picture and sound quality will be high and the same for every station, and TV pictures will mostly be seen via a box or a decoder.

Mr. Adom-Otchere, Host of Metro TV's Good Evening Ghana, who has appreciable understanding and knowledge of the analogue to digital switch, says the digital regime will benefit TV owners, content developers, advertisers and the government immensely; whiles giving the viewer a unique viewing experience.

In an article analyzing the pros and cons of the impending switch , Mr. Paul Adom-Otchere said: “Digital television has been used to create huge industry and wealth for nations such as the US, Europe and Asia. We now have a wonderful opportunity to stop applying taxpayer's money to pay our Sports men, as we can generate money from monetizing their content both in Ghana and abroad whenever they play as in the case of our footballers.”

“Content monetization must be the key driver of digital migration” he noted.

What kind of content will be on the other channels?

What has happened in other countries is that, the existing channels as we know them have created new platforms and migrated their most popular programs onto the other pay channels.

So for instance, TV3 could create TV3 plus; and migrate their best programs to those channels. That means, a non-paying subscriber will be limited to see only the first 20 channels, which will include TV3 regular, but may not see “Ghana's most beautiful” if that has been shifted to TV3 PLUS.

Same as if VIASAT decides to migrate a program like, “at home with Joselyn Dumas” to VIASAT EXTRA on the pay side of the box, a subscriber who is non-paying; will not see that show live.

The TV channels may decide to show the premium content the next day on the free channels as well. So that “Ghana most beautiful” will show live on Sunday night on TV3 PLUS; but will show the next day on Monday evening on TV3 regular etc.

The other kind of content that could be made available on the pay side; is the SPECIAL EVENTS channel that will broadcast special events such as sports events (Black Stars games or Mayweather fights) movie premiere and reality shows etc.

These will also be aired at high premium so that even if a subscriber is already paying, she may have to pay extra fee to see that premium content whilst non-paying subscribers will pay a bit just to see the special event content only. So that one may be a non-paying subscriber; and therefore sees only the regular 20 channels; but on a particular day, he wants to see the Black Stars game against England, he is happy to pay for that only; and return to his non-paying status, the system and decoder should allow one to see that.

We'll extend deadline for digital migration if … – Ursula Ekuful

Meanwhile Ghana's inability to complete the sale of the second 4G spectrum may compel it to extend the September 2017 deadline for the complete migration from analogue to digital platform.

This is the indication from the Minister for Communications, Ursula Owusu Ekuful. According to her, the development may put a strain on government's funding to support the infrastructure needed to facilitate the smooth take off for the digital migration.

Ghana has already missed the June 2016 deadline for the migration from analogue to digital television platform.

Deadline for switch
The global timeline for all countries to migrate unto the digital platform is 2020.Failure to meet this time period will lead to a complete cut off of defaulting countries.

Ghana signed on to the Geneva 2006 (GE-06) Agreement of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) establishing the Digital Terrestrial Broadcasting Frequency Plan in the radio frequency bands 174–230 MHz (VHF Band III) and 470–862 MHz (UHF Bands IV&V).

The Agreement provided for a transition period during which the analogue television services and digital services will co-exist before the analogue services are switched off.

The transition periods were set to end on 17th June 2015 for the Ultra High Frequency (UHF) Band and 17th June 2020 for the Very High Frequency (VHF) Band. But Ghana has decided that the transition period for both the UHF and VHF bands should be on 21st September, 2017.

Consequently, the Government of Ghana has established a nationwide Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) network that would provide coverage to at least 95% of the population and to carry at least forty (40) standard definition (SD) television programme channels in digital format.

The Ministry of Communications has since engaged stakeholders to develop the Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) Broadcasting Policy, 2016, which is currently awaiting Cabinet approval.

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By: Ebenezer Afanyi Dadzie/citifmonline.com/Ghana