Issue Seven - Conversations on Technology, Business and Society

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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
THE DOUBLE ISSUE | www.pctechmagazine.com SEPTEMEBER - OCTOBER 2010 | PC TECH NEWS 15
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