Thursday , March 28 2024

GIBA’S ASSERTION AGAINST CONTROLLED ACCESS

The Ghana Independent Broadcasters Association(GIBA) are showing their concern against the initiative on the regulation of television, that is who to watch and what to be viewed. They are saying that it is not a good initiative for Ghanaians.

Ghanaians for the Past years have been using the analogue system in operating their television. until 2007, when Ghana, along members of the ITV set June 17, 2019 as deadline to migrate from analogue to digital television. And in this case the view of channels on television will be controlled, thus your access to television channels will be done through subscriptions and set-up-boxes. 42 transmission site were built by KNET, 20 of which were connected to national grid.

Following up in 2018, there were concerns raised that government had waived 8 different taxes, amounting to $3,002,860. This is a very big issue to most Ghanaian citizens, because of the minimum time given  for the complete drive away of the analogue system. You can only get channels on your television by purchasing set-up-boxes or subscribing to the channel.

GIBA has come out with their case concerning this issue, stating that, the initiative is not a good one, and is not going to work out because of Ghana’s population and  the number of households who can purchase this service is very less. Per their estimation there are 5.8 million households in Ghana, in which 4.8 have TV lines. 99% rely exclusively on free-to-air television, less than 10% of these households watch paid TV. GIBA  further stated that 1.1 million households out of the 4.8 million households are vulnerable and cannot afford set-top-boxes, and a seven member board of central digital migration company limited would be government bias.

story by: Maame Esi Ewudziwaa  

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