08042018 - Education in free fall! •Sector gets paltry N3.9 trillion out of N55.19 trillion in 10 years

Viewpoint
By Edwin C. Nnadozie
VIEWPOINT IN BRIEF
Not where things go as
assumed
ALMOST every pay-television
subscriber I run into attempt,
not often successfully, to speak with
authority on how pay-television
business works. Pay-television
operations and business tend to be
put in the same category as sex in
which everybody thinks he/she is
knowledgeable, an expert even.
The widely assumed familiarity
with the pay television ecosystem
feeds the almost-religious belief that
pay television services should be
cheap and that providers are
ripping subscribers off. Even
without actually saying it, I suspect,
many subscribers believe that paytelevision
services should be treated
like public utilities in the country,
amenities we think should be used
free of charge but expect to function
optimally. Having worked in the
television industry for over a decade,
I can, at the risk of sounding
conceited, claim to know a thing or
two about how the business works.
Before proceeding, it is important
to state that there is no intention to
slate anybody for not being familiar
with the business of pay-television.
By Niyi Anibaba
VIEWPOINT IN BRIEF
Dividends of democracy
ON Easter Monday, Lago
sians woke up to behold
Governor Mr Akinwunmi Ambode
move from one place to another
with a crowd of loyalists,
government officials and thousands
of enthusiastic residents.
The governor was performing
the historic commissioning of a
large network of 19 roads and
two bridges in Alimosho local
council. With a combined stretch
of 27.4 kilometers, the streets are
sited in the inner suburbs, far removed
from the familiar Lagos -
Abeokuta highway.
Until that Monday, this overworked
human and vehicular
route used to be the economic
and business hub of the people
of Alimosho-OkeOdo-Agbado
area, the largest federal constituency
in Nigeria. But a visionary
and compassionate governor
mulled the choking hardship
ensuing from this arrangement
as well as its effect on Africa’s
fifth largest economy which Lagos
has become and decided to
change the narrative.
He came to the conclusion that
governance is a failed enterprise
if it doesn’t come close to the
people via government projects,
if it doesn’t shorten the distance
between their abode and the centre
of business through a good
How Pay-Television Business Works
It is no civic obligation, after all.
Having assumptions is part of our
make-up as humans. Some
assumptions, of course, are
reasonably well founded; others, not
so much.
First and very crucially, it is
important to understand that paytelevision
companies usually do not
own the enchanting content they
broadcast. They are often just
vendors or brokers for content
creators and owners. Content
creators and owners sell to paytelevision
companies for re-sale to
the latter’s respective subscribers.
There can be no prizes for guessing
which party is dominant one in the
pay television ecosystem. While
providers own the customer
relationship and make their money
from rent on the delivery of content,
pricing power belongs to the
content owners.
Most often, content owners, often
large companies, charge affiliate
fees-their primary source of
revenue-for funding content
production. Affiliate fees are
carriage fees paid per month per
subscriber by pay television
companies or multichannel video
programming distributors to
SUNDAY Vanguard, APRIL 8, 2018, PAGE 43
By Sufuyan Ojeifo
VIEWPOINT IN BRIEF
Celebrating an influential
politician
“Paint my picture truly like me,”
Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) told
the artist about to paint his portrait,
“pimples, warts, and everything as
you Dsee me.”
avid Alechenu Bonaventure
Mark, retired brigadier general,
former senate president and
longest serving senator of the Federal
Republic of Nigeria, presents
avant-garde views or perspectives
to writers who indulge in the enterprise
of questioning and contextualizing
the essence or quintessence
of grandees. In such an enterprise,
the subject matter becomes
a captive in the fertile imagination
of the writer who is at liberty to either
build or dismantle primordial
prejudices; or deconstruct or
even reconstruct the persona of the
subject on the writ large platform
of conscionable journalistic interrogation.
Perceptions and perspectives assume
free reins. That is the tragedy,
so to speak, of heroes. They are
subjected to the vagaries of characterisations
that most times encapsulate
both the sublime and the
ridiculous; the garish and the outlandish;
the profound and the jejune;
the profane and the celestial.
Inevitably, Mark, who is now 70
(April 8, 2018), is one of the latest
captives of this obligatory ritual
which many crave and many others
loathe. There is always the existential
fear about the doubleedged
nature of good and bad that
media hype breeds. The fear of the
occasional collateral damage, yes,
of the unintended consequences, is
real and grisly.
Yet, it could be salutary, somewhat,
to introspective self-assessment
of how well one has fared
whether rightly or wrongly in the
domain of public perception, especially
for those in public offices,
who must be taken through the critical
appraisal index. It is in this
context that the essential David
Mark cannot escape essential consideration.
Mark, without a doubt, means
different things to different people.
To some, he remains a gentleman
officer even in retirement; to others,
he is an astute politician and
strategist with rare legerdemain;
some more see him as a philanthropist
with capacity for cornucopian
eleemosynary while some
perceive him as a passionate golfer
Ṫhese are not all to the variegated
perspectives: some see him as a
budding religious aficionado of
the catholic hue while others see
him as traditional for his receptiveness
of the traditional title of
Okpokpowulu K’Idoma (the leader
of war or the bulldozer of Idoma)
from his Royal Majesty, Agabaidu
Elias Ikoyi Obekpa, the
Och’Idoma IV of Idomaland, in
2009 or thereabout in recognition
of his numerous contributions to
the development of Idoma land.
But my preoccupation herein is
to illuminate the philosophical underpinning
of the activities, the life
and times of a man whose entirety
evokes, at once, multiple perspectives
by admirers and traducers
alike. I could have adapted the oneliner
summation of the French philosopher,
Rene Descartes’ “cogito
ergo sum” meaning “I think therefore
I am” when he was asked who
a man is, to answer the question as
to who David Mark is.
Who is David Mark? And what
Ambode: Between projects and merit votes
road network.
And so the Ambode administration
refused to toe the line of
elitist concentration of infrastructure
in and around the expressway.
He moved from there
and headed for the underdeveloped
outskirts to bring government
to the doorstep of the people.
Town planners call his action
centrifugal country development.
It breaks the monopoly of
government presence in the metropolis.
It restores the traditional
concept of government as the
father of all, both the rural
dwellers and city folks, not that
of the latter, even if government
is in the city.
Also, this practice
inevitably causes
subscription price
hikes and subscriber
displeasure, which pay
television companies
have to deal with
exclusively.
content owners. While the affiliate
model benefits both content owners
and vendors (the former is able to
extend its reach and generate new
sales; the vendor or affiliate makes
commissions), the senior partnerby
miles-is the content owner.
Premium content, including live
coverage of iconic sports events and
recent Hollywood movie releases,
determine where subscribers go.
Competition for this category of
content is as fierce and bruising as
a prize fight, which naturally drives
up the cost of acquisition. The
subsisting broadcast rights to the
Premier League, which lapses next
The essential David Mark @70
Both flanks, that of
Alimosho and of Epe,
form a grand vision
of an economic integration
of all the
southwest states,
starting with Ogun
state the closest
In line with the mood of the
moment that marked the holiest
ceremony in the Christian
calendar, Ambode spoke of the
commissioning as a metaphor
for the economic reawakening
of Alimosho. Jesus’ Resurrection
at Easter was a restoration of
lost hope and a return to life. The
roads he launched on Easter
Monday were figuratively as it
were, a new page in the continuous
delivery of the dividends of
good governance after a long
period of deathlike denial.
“This is what is called dividend
of democracy,” Ambode
told an ecstatic and jubilant
crowd. “’We are making this Alimosho
axis economically viable
and livable. By opening up
the whole network stretching
27.4 km we have brought economy
back to this place. With the
walkways and street lights, these
communities are becoming safer
and there is more to do. By
expanding the infrastructure
around this axis, you can travel
as far as Ojo or Badagry without
necessarily passing through
the express road. That is what
you voted for, and that’s why we
are returning here to say we have
kept all our promises.”
The governor also opened up
on how to spare the land routes
of needless stress. His govern-
year, cost UK’s Sky and BT a
staggering 5billion pounds. This
amounts to a 70 per cent increase
over what was paid the last time.
Even for content produced locally,
costs are not static, as producers are
not insulated from local and
international economic indices,
which impose upward cost reviews
when new content agreements are
being entered into. Just as with
foreign content, local content is
denominated in dollars, the
international currency of doing
business, because most paytelevision
platforms operate across
borders. Some pay-television
companies, such as DStv, are known
to develop sports and entertainment
content, which costs astronomical
sums.
As with everything in life, profile
almost always determines what you
get. Thus, a small-time content
owner is very unlikely to attract a
sizeable affiliate fee for its content.
But the behemoths such as Sky
Sports, Viacom or Disney are well
placed to negotiate and attract
much fatter sums per subscriber per
month because they offer
compelling content, without which
any pay-television package
ment, he promised, will dredge
the Illo River and rehabilitate
roads in the area- Adekoya, Makinde,
Suberu Oje, Old Ota, IshefunIjan
which will be converted
to a jetty through which residents
can ride a boat to connect Marina
on Lagos in less than half an
hour. If you’re already getting the
picture of a governor thinking
beyond service delivery to the
metropolitan people only, then
you’re just close to Ambode’s
long-haul race. For he says that
a BRT corridor is coming in tow
on the scene of the just-commissioned
roads. Still more: something
similar is in the offing between
Epe and Ijebu Ode to
make way for Lagos to access the
Ijebu Ode- Ore Expressway in
Ogun.
Both flanks, that of Alimosho
and of Epe, form a grand vision
of an economic integration of all
the southwest states, starting with
Ogun state the closest. Ambode
says: ‘’That is what economic integration
means, that is how to
expand commerce, that’s how to
create jobs for our people and by
this project people in the community
will benefit from the jobs
and also benefit from the commerce
and that is what inclusive
governance is all about.”
The lesson from this Epe-born
governor is that you can adroitly
marketed stands at a debilitating
disadvantage.
Pay-television service providers
remain in business because
subscribers want access to popular
content such as the Premier League,
Spanish La Liga, documentaries,
movies or kids’ entertainment. The
bid to remain in business leaves
them at the mercy of content owners
who, on account of the hot
properties they own, could keep
charging higher sums as affiliate
fees. Pay-television companies suffer
further disadvantage when contentowning
giants decide (and it is often)
to band channels together and
compel them to pay affiliate fees
for all their channels whether
popular or not. This often results in
dispute between both parties. Also,
this practice inevitably causes
subscription price hikes and
subscriber displeasure, which pay
television companies have to deal
with exclusively.
Another plank of the business is
the cost of satellites used for
transmission. There are five major
components involved in direct to
home (DTH) or direct broadcasting
(DBS) satellite system: the
programming source, broadcast
centre, satellite, satellite dish and
the receiver.
*Nnadozie, studio engineer, is
resident in Enugu
are his essences? I could settle for
one of the perspectives supra in a
quick riposte and go ahead to adumbrate
his essences within the
narrow confine of just a perspective.
But on the unique occasion of
his 70th birthday, I cannot be unfair
to him with a one-dimensional
or one-liner appreciation.
Therefore, Mark is a fitting summation
of all the perspectives and
for a man to deserve this kind of
approximation makes him a phenomenon.
I take the opportunity
of his 70thbirthday to celebrate
a friend and mentor who chose, at
a critical intersection in my coverage
of the Senate as THISDAY politics
editor in Abuja, to let me into
his life by force of appreciation of
my intellectual capital.
My reportage of the politicking
of the race for the senate presidency
in 2007 had been misconstrued
as opposition to Mark’s senate
presidency and that disposition
had preponderated reportorial interactions
until 2009 when Mark
turned 61.
*Ojeifo wrote via
ojwonderngr@yahoo.com
deploy endogenous initiatives to
attract exogenous wealth and
prosperity for your people. He
went thousands of kilometers to
Kebbi state to strike a deal for
the now famous Lake Rice. Now
he’s heading close by, westwards
to his people to clinch the goal
of an old dream cherished by
Yoruba leaders of the 50s and
60s.
Isn’t it instructive that just recently
the other states of the
southwest- Ogun, Osun, Oyo,
Ondo and Ekiti- completed the
process of readmitting Lagos
into the Odua Investment conglomerate
with 115 million
shares, thus kick starting what
is being hailed as ‘’the real economic
integration of the region”?
When he met newsmen shortly
after the road commissioning,
an elated Senator Olamilekan
Adeola said Ambode has ‘’surpassed
expectations of Lagosians”.
He added somewhat jubilantly:
‘’…many residents who
relocated from the area years
ago, have been returning to the
axis due to the massive infrastructural
by the Akinwunmi
(Ambode)-led administration.”
The federal lawmaker then addressed
Ambode: ‘’Your Excellency,
we are assuring you of giving
you one million votes in the
coming election (in 2019) in Alimosho
alone.”
*Anibaba, a journalist, lives
in Ikorodu.