GBC launches four digital channels

The Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) has launched four digital channels to cater for the emerging taste of the public.

The channels are the famous GTV (a channel for events that matter most to Ghanaians), GTV Sports + (a channel for sports), GBC 24 (a news channel) and GTV Life (a religion and culture channel). 

A creative centre for packaging and scheduling of programmes to feed the channels has also been established in Accra. The managers are Francis Magnus-George, GTV; George Lomotey, GTV Sports +; Johnnie Aryeetey, GBC 24; and Isaac Addington, GTV Life.

Launching the channels in Accra, Mr Oscar Nchor, Director of Technical Production, said the corporation was mindful of local content and would launch more channels to cater for the regions. 

He said GBC would soon launch two other channels, GTV Govern (a governance channel) and Obonu TV (a channel for the people of Greater Accra and window for the Ga-Dangbe) which would be managed by Ebenezer Ampaabeng and Chris Puplampu respectively. 

“With support from the government and the people of Ghana, GBC is poised to explore every means to continue to be relevant and competitive backed by distinguished brand quality,” he said.  

The Board Chairman of GBC, Mr Richard Kwame Asante, asked for a revision of the television licence fee from 30Gp to GH¢2 per month to enable GBC to recover some of its operational costs and improve on its public services in order to create more jobs for Ghanaians.

“Our national cohesion, territorial integrity and societal harmony are being undermined by the desire to apply commercial and profit motive to all national activities, however, the revision of the TV licence fee will enable the GBC to continue to champion these values,” Mr Asante said.

He said public service broadcasting was one of the important tools of the nation, and that it was the guarantor of our sovereignty, adding that the public service broadcaster had a duty to respond to the higher call of patriotic national duty to provide coverage for the less-privileged and destitute in the society.  

 “As a nation, we have given ourselves a deadline of December 2014 to complete the digital migration process, while the International Telecommunications Union deadline of June, 2015 will allow us the space to ensure that we take care of any unforeseen hiccups in the process,” he said. 

Major Albert Don-Chebe (retd), the Director-General of GBC, appealed to the Executive and the Legislature to support GBC by revising the TV license fee to  to make it meaningful for GBC to collect. 

“TV license in UK is £176 per year and GBC is asking for only GH¢24 per year to become financially sound and also provide competitive TV programmes for Ghanaians,” he said.

Major Don-Chebe said the current 30 pesewas TV licence fee as mandated by law was woefully inadequate for GBC's operations, saying “GBC would from the second quarter of this year, resume the collection in phases”.

He said in phase one, the corporation would target hotels, restaurants, entertainment centres, importers, retailers and repairers while phase two would cover all other operators or users of TV sets, including households.