Ninety-three per cent of African countries may not meet the June 17, 2015 deadline to switch-over from analogue to digital television broadcasting as a result of insufficient funding and poor infrastructure.

Telecommunication experts at the 5th African Digitalisation Seminar in Tianjin- Beijing agreed that unless there was a miracle, only four African countries out of 54 would meet the June 17 switch-over date, just few days away. Nigeria has already extended the deadline by 18 months.

Dr Xinxing Wang, Chairman of StarTimes, the organiser of the seminar, titled: “The Challenges of Digitalisation Project in Africa,” said it was a huge challenge financially that would affect the switch- over date.

Although, Wang pledged assistance of the Chinese Government, he added that African countries should be ready to embrace Public-Private Partnership (PPP) in the project to speed up the programme.

“There are a lot of benefits from analogue to digital; it can create huge opportunities for business between China investors and African countries.
“The PPP model will enable all stakeholders to achieve a win-win situation in the broadcast industry and also promote cultural exchanges between China and African countries.

“We are aware that there are challenges facing this project in Africa, China is willing to assist. For instance, in Africa, Nigeria is StarTimes biggest market; we are working with Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), the largest network in Africa.

“We want to have more strategic partners in Africa so that we can produce more programmes in African language like Swahili, Hausa, Yoruba and Ibo language.
“Our projection is that at the end of this year, we will cover 45 African countries.’’

Wang said that to meet the above challenges, African countries should be able to choose combinations that were cost effective to meet the huge financial responsibility.

“StarTimes will assist in funding the project in a joint venture and will propose a financial proposal that will include exclusive rights and training need of employees,’’ he promised.

The Director-General of the NTA, Mr Sola Omole, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that the project started well in Nigeria, but soon lost steam to political activities.

A representative of Kenyan Government, Mr Joseph Ubamta said the delay in migration in Kenya was due to the litigation which had slowed down the roll out of the digital signal.

He, however, said that the legal issue has been resolved and that the project was 58 per cent completed enough to guarantee the June switch- over deadline.
Dr Fenella Mukangara,Tanzania’s Minister of Information and Communication, Youths and Sports, said Tanzania had made good progress since 2006 when the decision was taken by the International Television Union (ITU).

According to her, Tanzania is 100 per cent ready to meet the deadline as everything is in place and we successfully migrated in 2012.

“Our infrastructure is in place, the Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) all in place and China has been most supportive.

“Our network has increased and the coverage area extends to Kenya, Uganda, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Namibia,’’ she said.

About 50 African representatives, including African media representatives attended the programme