Issue Seven - Conversations on Technology, Business and Society

NEWS
14
Digital TV analysis
African states could fail to meet ITU’s 2015
deadline for transition to digital TV
BY MICHAEL OUMA, NAIROBI
African countries face the prospect of failing to
meet the 2015 deadline set by the International
Telecommunications Union (ITU) for all countries
to make the transition from analogue to digital
television broadcasting.
Speaking at African IT Exhibitions and
Conferences’ (AITEC) second Broadcast and Film
Conference in Nairobi, Russell Southwood, chief
executive of BalancingAct UK, a telecoms, internet
and broadcast technologies consultancy, said that
of the 53 states in the African continent, only five
have launched the process of switching over from
analogue to digital television broadcasting.
Among the 5 countries that have made public
launches to the switchover, said Southwood, are
two East African Community (EAC) member states
– Kenya and Tanzania – while Mauritius is set to
switch-off all its analogue television signals by the
end of 2012.
“Currently, 10 countries are at the pilot stage
of making the switchover while 29 states seem
to be doing nothing. This means that over half
of African countries may fail to meet the 2015
deadline set by the ITU for the transition from
analogue to digital television broadcasting,” said
Southwood.
He further challenged broadcasters to change
their programming models, by shifting from timebased
transmission to theme-based channels as
this introduces the concept of “give viewers what
they want, not everything in between.”
“Transition to themed transmission and channels
could lead broadcasters to concentrate and
focus on their niche audiences who demand
and are interested in specific content. This move
could also help them address the challenge of
fragmentation of audiences due to increasing
number of channels and medius,” he said.
On the broadcast regulatory front, the conference
heard that even though only 17 out of 40 African
countries had by 2008 liberalized their free-to-air
television broadcast sectors, the figure has by this
year risen to 28 out of 46 states in sub-Saharan
Africa which have liberalized both their countries’
radio and pay TV industries while another .
“The once that are yet to liberalise are relatively
small states – like Mauritius and Sao Tome – and
other authoritarian states,” said Southwood,
adding that opportunities in broadcasting sector
are currently available in Ethiopia and Zimbabwe.
Speaking at the conference, Kenya’s permanent
secretary in the ministry of information and
communications Dr Bitange Ndemo said that that
Africa’s broadcasting stations need to increase
their investments in capacity building of broadcast
content creators.
Dr Ndemo added that in order for Kenya’s film
industry to improve the quality of productions, the
PC TECH | SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2010 | pctechmagazine.com
industry has sought and gained valuable lessons
from other more developed film making locations
of the world.
“Kenya has got experiences and lessons from
India’s ‘Bollywood’ film industry which produces
thousands of movies per year and is currently
learning from Nigeria’s ‘Nollywood’ to develop its
film and movie sectors,” said Dr Ndemo, adding
that to further spur development of the sector, the
government has established an incubator where
local producers and broadcast content developers
would be able to work on their animations.
The PS however urged broadcasters to delink
“broadcasting houses from content producers in
order to give independence and more bargaining
power to the producers as the practice enhances
competition.”
The conference also had increased emphasis for
broadcasters to improve on their transmission of
locally relevant content in order to boost stations’
audience numbers and further attract new
advertisers to their outlets.
This is because currently, most of the
programming content transmitted by most
broadcasters is mostly foreign which is
not attractive with many audiences, with
BalancingAct’s Russell Southwood saying that
the “missing bit in African broadcast stations is
still local African content as local content always
does better in attracting audiences compared to
foreign material.”
He noted that one of the drivers of local content
could be local content quotas being imposed on
broadcasters, with an example being Kenya where
current regulations require broadcasters to have
at least 40 per cent local content. He further
challenged content producers to think about local
content not just as a single country but continentwide
focused to have a wider audience.
Suhayl Esmaijee, the WananchiOnline chief
operations officer said that current trends in
the television broadcasting scene indicate a
transformation in viewership “as content is
no longer made and targeted at a particular
geographic region but for a universal audience
” with an example being Kenya where the most
popular programmes are Mexican soaps.
However, David Campbell, Mediae Kenya chief
executive challenged the position, saying that
Mexican soaps are favoured by free-to-air
broadcasters as they are cheap to acquire than
local productions which need huge capital
investments to bring on the screen.
Industry insiders say that foreign programmes
cost between US $ 300 to 400 per hour to acquire
compared to local productions which cost about
US $ 15,000 to 20,000 per hour to produce.
TOP STORIES IN BRIEF
Microsoft celebrates
Windows Phone 7 RTM
with funeral parade for
BlackBerry and iPhone
By Vlad Savov (engadget.com)
The iPhone’s dead, long live the
Windows Phone. That must be the
genius proclamation that incited
Microsoft to celebrate Windows
Phone 7 reaching RTM status with the
incomprehensible procession you see
above. An elaborate parade, replete with
hearses and black capes, was organized
last week to denote the passing of the
BlackBerry and iPhone into the land of
unwanted gadgets. We’d say this is done
in poor taste, but we don’t enjoy stating
the obvious. We will, however, enjoy the
fallout from this poorly judged stunt. See
our favorite image after the break and
lots more at the source.
Update: Apparently the team also
engaged in a Thriller dance. Words are
failing us, so just hop on past the break
and mash play.
Facebook Making
Mobile Phone?
Facebook denied a story published
by TechCrunch that says the company
is “building a mobile phone,” but
CNET.com confirmed that the socialnetworking
giant has reached out to
hardware manufacturers and carriers
seeking input on a potential Facebookbranded
phone.
TechCrunch published a story saying
“Facebook is building a mobile phone...
or rather, they’re building the software
for the phone and working with a third
party to actually build the hardware.”
Facebook quickly tried to discredit the
story, with a spokesman telling CNET
that “Facebook is not building a phone.
Our view is that almost all experiences
would be better if they were social, so
integrating deeply into existing platforms
and operating systems is a good way to
enable this.”
Read more: http://news.cnet.
com/8301-1023_3-20016916-93.html?
tag=topStories1#ixzz103OKAQ54