Konga pioneers Buyers and Sellers TV, to debut October - ITREALMS

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As Nigerians are going through seasons of very high cost of living, including suffocating cost of fund to do business, a piece of exciting news has emerged that Konga is set to pioneer a 24-hour Buyers and Sellers TV, which is set to launch in the month of October to celebrate Nigeria’s 63rd Independence Anniversary.

Konga TV, an Internet Protocol TV (iPTV) channel widely reputed as Africa’s first buyers and sellers TV, will go live early in October 2023.

FirstBank, Linda Ikeji TV partner on First Class Material – ITREALMS

ITREALMS:

First Bank of Nigeria Limited has advanced partnership with Linda Ikeji TV for the broadcast of the TV show, First Class Material, reports ITREALMS.

The show, ITREALMS gathered, is billed to premiere on all FirstBank and Linda Ikeji TV platforms across the web and social media on Tuesday 26th November at 8am and reposted at 7pm same evening- Nigerian time.

First Class Material is a programme which aims to chronicle the success stories of Nigerians who are distinct and exemplary in their achievements and importantly, a testament to the greatness of the West African country.

The weekly show would have viewers exposed to Nigerians across the globe that have carved a niche for themselves by being exemplary and influential in their chosen endeavours and career path. Success stories of notable firsts and trailblazers would be highlighted, with viewers encouraged to go beyond limits and leave no stone unturned at making their dreams a reality.

Amongst the success stories to be broadcasted through the course of the 6 months weekly programme is brilliance of Ifeoma Thorpe-White, a 17 year-old Nigerian immigrant admitted into all eight Ivy League schools in the United States, including Stanford & Harvard universities.

Speaking on the TV show, Folake Ani-Mumuney, the Group Head, Marketing & Corporate Communications, First Bank of Nigeria Limited said “First Class Material is a celebration of notable Firsts by Nigerians which underscores what First Bank of Nigeria Limited stands for. The essence of the TV programme is to have many more people informed and encouraged by the successes, thereby having these feats emulated in their chosen endeavours.”

“We are excited about this partnership with Linda Ikeji TV and remain committed to celebrating the successes of Nigerians which indeed resonates the theme of FirstBank’s 125 anniversary, thus “Woven into the Fabric of Society”, she concluded.

Also speaking, Nigeria’s renowned celebrity blogger, Linda Ikeji said “being the first to do something is remarkable. It defines and shapes paths for others to follow. And it can be truly inspiring when one is partnering with a company such as FirstBank – an institution of many firsts’’.

Uj. N. Dominic/Editor

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Internet TV provider, NBCU enter content deal

ITREALMS:

Leading Internet Television (TV) service provider for emerging markets, IFLIX has entered into major multi-year content licensing agreement with NBCUniversal (NBCU) to add a huge selection of the studio’s most popular and critically acclaimed titles to iflix’s extensive library, reports ITRealms.

This deal, ITRealms gathered, would offer iflix subscribers across sub-Saharan Africa unlimited access to both stream and download an impressive collection of NBCU content, including the Academy Award^®-winning Gladiator, the hit drama series Suits, spine-tingling classic film Psycho and the iflix exclusive series Midnight Texas.

Head of content for Africa and MENA, Evert van der Veer said that NBCU is one of the world’s most pre-eminent providers of award-winning content. We are thrilled to offer many of their most acclaimed series and movies to consumers across the sub-Sahara African region, reaffirming our commitment to our members to offer the best and widest selection of entertainment content available.”

With over 6.5 million members and over 10 billion minutes streamed since launch, iflix has established itself as the clear market leader in video streaming.

ITRealms reports that IFLIX is currently available in 25 markets across Asia, MENA, and sub-Saharan Africa, iflix offers consumers a vast library of top Hollywood, regional and local TV shows and movies including many first run exclusives and award-winning programs, each subscription allows users to access the service on up to five devices, including phones, laptops, tablets, and television sets, for viewing wherever, whenever.

Nonye Dom/GEE

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FG to SetTop Box Manufacturers: Give Nigerians multi-purpose TV

ITRealms:

The Federal Government (FG) has urged the SetTop Box manufacturers to give Nigerians multi-purpose television, reports ITRealms.

 Making this call on behalf of Federal Government, the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, challenged the manufacturers of Set Top Boxes/Decoders in the country to produce a multi-purpose television set that will help in transforming the TV experience of Nigerians.

Speaking in Calabar on Thursday during the commissioning of the ultra-modern Digital Set Top Box manufacturing plant, owned by the Gospell Digital Technology.

Also, he said the transition from analogue to digital broadcasting in the country is aimed at giving Nigerians a total television viewing experience that will transform their lives and change TV viewing forever.

''I have continued to reiterate, and the quality of the service we launched goes to confirm, that our objective is not to just move Nigerians from analogue to digital in a simple technical sense, but to improve the viewing experience and give them increased variety of channels and services.

''The average home today - in order to have access to the various types of entertainment - will require a television, a Set Top Box and a VCD/DVD player. This era is about to end. I am challenging the industry to move to one device in the home - the television. Give us a TV with a built-in decoder and the requisite middle-ware inside it, being able to access Nollywood releases with or without the internet, and with a remote control that can convert the TV into a computer.

''And please not for the rich, but for every Nigerian home. With that we will have succeeded in the reduction of the cost of access to television, information and education,'' he said.

The Minister hailed Gospell Digital Technology for building the country's largest electronic manufacturing and assembly plant, saying the investors and the managers of the manufacturing plant have exhibited absolute confidence, ''first in the future and economy prosperity of our beloved country, and of course in the Digital Switch Over (DSO) programme.

The plant, situated in the Calabar Export Free Trade Zone, has the capacity to produce 2.4 million Set Top Boxes annually, and has already provided 500 jobs.

''Going by its achievements in so short a time, the company's vision of becoming the leading manufacturer of household electronic video, home entertainment and electrical appliances in Africa is very much within its reach,'' Alhaji Mohammed said.

Also present at the commissioning were the Executive Governor of Cross River State, Prof. Ben Ayade; the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Information, Senator Suleiman Adokwe; Senator Shehu Sani, Senator Samuel Anyanwu; Senator Mao Ohuabunwa and the Director-General of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), Mala, Is'haq Modibo Kawu.

Uboshe Uboshe/GEE

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Pix: From left - Cross River State Governor, Senator Ben Ayade (left); Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed (middle) and the Group Managing Director of Gospell Digital Technology Electronics Manufacturing and Assembly Company, Sir Godfrey Ohuabunwa, at the commissioning of the production plant of the company in Calabar on Thursday.

5 StarTimes subscribers to watch life German Bundesliga

@ITRealms:

Digital Television (TV) service provider, StarTimes, has announced names of the first five winners of an all-expense paid trip to Germany to watch and enjoy the thrills and sporting actions of the German Bundesliga football, and meet the super stars.

The company, at the first draw held in Abuja, at the weekend, picked the first five winners out of the 10 slots up for grabs in its ongoing 'Win A Trip to Germany' promo while the remaining five winners will emerge at the end of the promo in September. 

The company also held draws which produced 175 other winners of various household items, including 25 units of 40 inches LED television sets, 50 units of 2.5 KVA generating sets as well as 100 Solar 5 smart phones respectively. On the whole, 77,559 subscribers qualified for the first draws.

The event was witnessed by the media and regulatory bodies, including deputy director of regulatory and monitoring, national lottery board commission, Mr. Sabo Haruna, representatives of advertising practitioners council of Nigeria, APCON as well as consumer protection council, CPC in Abuja.

In his remarks, Mr. Sabo Haruna said “the lottery board was present at the event to ensure that everything goes as advertised. Everything a company promises customers must be fulfilled as announced. We are quite satisfied with the StarTimes promo draw witnessed today as it was very transparent and properly done.” 

According to StarTimes’ Public Relations Manager, Mr Israel Bolaji, the promo, which commenced last month, is part of the grand plan to mark the company’s fifth year anniversary and excite its entertainment loving subscribers.

Mr Bolaji said StarTimes signed a five-year deal to exclusively broadcast all the Bundesliga league football matches and three years exclusive deal to broadcast the Serie A football live, both in Nigeria and across Africa on its sport channels – Star World Football, Star Sport Premium, Star Sports 2 and Star Sports Focus – as part of its renewed bid to boost sports offerings.

“To qualify, a StarTimes subscriber should recharge for two months and get a guaranteed 50 per cent discount on the second month while new customers within the period can also do the same,” he noted.

Bolaji remarked that as a mark of honour for customers, the pay TV firm decided to organize landmark engagements and contents to further excite customers in recognition of their support for the brand in the last five years in Nigeria. Customers can participate both on our digital terrestrial and satellite platforms (StarTimes and Star Dish TV).

As a family brand, StarTimes is interested in providing as much entertainment and engagement for subscribers and as it continues with the promo in the spirit of its 5th year anniversary, both new and old customer can be a lucky winner.

@ITRealms

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NBC tackles anti-competitive practices in Nigeria

ITRealms:

The National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) has expressed its readiness to tackle the long anti-competition within the Nigerian television market space, reports ITRealms.

NBC, ITRealms gathered recently invited an international team of TV market consultants to undertake an economic baseline study of the sector.

Specifically, NBC hinted ITRealms that the consultants would undertake  a review of current market structures to see if there are any restrictions to content, including premium rights and events, and whether such restrictions hinders the emergence of new services, and  platforms, and their ability to compete effectively. 

Also, the consultants would assess other issues such as market dominance, network, programme access rules and content exclusivity; impact of the advertising market on broadcast revenue and operations; with particular attention to revenue returns for broadcast stations. 

In addition they would examine whether any current market conduct adversely affects revenue for broadcasting stations in Nigeria. This is of vital importance because the economic survival of the broadcasting market depends on the operation of the advertising market.

A press statement made available to ITRealms further stated that NBC is set to institute a team of local and foreign experts to examine the role of foreign sports broadcasting property rights, such as football rights on the cost of pay television in Nigeria as against the development of our local leagues, and its impact on the cost of pay television in Nigeria. The committee which shall be formally constituted soon shall work to reduce the possible impact of such rights on the cost of our local TV rates. 

A reliable source inside the Commission informed us that in order to adequately deal with some of the issues which has arisen from both the digital transition and the competition issues within the Nigerian broadcasting market, the National Broadcasting Commission recently set up the DigiGroup Contact Team made up of broadcasters, signal distributors, set top box manufacturers, legal and technology experts.

Recently, there was a court action against Multichoice Nigeria Limited (DSTV) on the indiscriminate increase in their subscription fees. It is unfortunate that the Nigerian pay-tv market is under the stranglehold of DSTV due to its early entry into the broadcast market and its already established dominance in South Africa.

 DSTV has a wide range of exclusive pay-tv rights (satellite and terrestrial) for the wholesale supply of premium channels, such as M-NET, the Super Sport channels, KTV, MTV, CNN, Discovery, National Geographic Channel, etc. It is currently the only supplier of premium sports (English Premier League, UEFA Champions League, Europa League, prime Tennis tournaments and Basketball leagues etc.)

 

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The Coming Digital TV Revolution

Opinion: DigitalSENSE Business News:

Except something unexpected happens, by July 31 next year, all analogue TV transmission in Nigeria will cease. Essentially all our existing TV stations - Channels, NTA, State TV stations and several others will cease to broadcast signals that can be directly received on our television sets. The world is transiting to digital TV broadcasting and July 31, 2015 has been set as Nigeria’s cut over date. Every television signal will have to pass through a set top box or decoder before being received by a television set.

The most obvious impact is that Nigeria will have to spend an estimated 700 billion naira to purchase decoders if they plan to continue watching television! The big question is how will this come about? Can Nigerian families really afford this, should they spend that much and what can anyone do to ameliorate the expenditure. The elephant in the room question is will it all be worth it?

To answer this question, let us look at the digital satellite TV service currently in the works from CWG and SES. SES is one of the leading communication satellite operators in the world. Her fleet of satellites include the Astra 2G craft whose foot print on the ku-band covers Nigeria and the rest of West Africa with high fidelity signals. SES also has considerable expertise in digital broadcast including operating the HD+ high definition service in Germany as well as being the partner of choice for a variety of other operators. SES’ expertise extends beyond satellites to also include content management and integration into worldwide content distribution networks. CWG has been SES partner in data communications for the past 20 years. CWG operates both a teleport for the upload of signals to SES satellites as well as a Tier 3 Data Centre that provide hosting services for storage and management of content and signals.

CWG and SES have introduced a service that allows any broadcaster to broadcast digital satellite signals that will be received using a variety of standard decoders. These signals will be received all over Nigeria and West Africa. The broadcasters will not need to change their existing equipment but will only need to make minor investment in digital encoders and they are good to go. This means for instance that Zamfara state TV can be received all over Nigeria as well as Osun State TV or Channels TV. IT means State TV broadcasting stations will no longer need to invest in expensive repeater stations in order to cover their states. The Enugu man in Lagos will happily see Enugu State TV in Lagos as well as the Enugu State man can easily see Lagos State TV. 

This is a staggering saving and expansion of reach for the regional or local broadcasters without the attendant significant cost outlay. For this alone, the television viewer will have received the value of digital television. Consider that as at today, it is impossible to keep up with local news if you leave the locality.

The CWG and SES service introduces a totally new dimension to television broadcasting. They are making it possible for any content owner - say a movie producer or a journalist or entertainer or school or church or consultant or government entity - to be able to broadcast 24 hour television which is viewable anywhere in Nigeria. We could be watching National Assembly TV as easily as we could be watching Open University TV or Catholic TV or NAFSAT TV. This is achievable because the CWG/SES system can accept live content as well as recorded content. It can also broadcast standard definition as well as high definition picture quality. We should be expecting an explosion of content of various forms.

TV can be used for not only entertainment but also for education. China’s education system utilizes TV heavily to reach remote locations with standard curricula. This can also be the case in Nigeria. Our falling standard of education can benefit a lot from standard curricula delivered by properly equipped teachers to all school classrooms. This immediately reduces variation in the quality of teaching and also improves the quality of the teachers.

The coming digital television revolution will bring incredible value and opportunities for both viewers, broadcasters and other content owners. CWG and SES aim to be at the centre of this revolution, working with other stakeholders to make the switch to digital TV worth every effort and expense.

*This piece was contributed by the Chief Technology Officer, Computer Warehouse Group Plc, Mr. James Agada.

 

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Pix: @James Agada

GoTv debuts in Ibadan

GOTv, a low cost digital television service using the next generation Digital Video Broadcast, a standard (DVB-T2) has debut in Ibadan.

Proponents of GOTv, Details Nigeria, said it would offer the greatest selection of local channels made in Africa for Africa as well as great international channels.

General Manager of GOtv, Mayo Okunola, said that the launch represents one of the most advanced Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) broadcast system and infrastructure established in Africa and the rest of the world till date.

“GOTv will deliver digital television to everyone and will enable them experience the digital television revolution in their homes. It supports the Nigerian government’s commitment to migrating from an analogue to digital by 2012” he said.

He added that the launch of GOtv will play a pivotal role towards contributing to this technological transformation and in the process will help the country to achieve its set target towards the migration to digital TV transmission.

He explained that GOtv is on the DVB-T2 technology standard which allows for up to 20 channels per frequency, this is different from DVB-T1 technology which only allows for 12 channels per frequency. 

Hence, he said, there is a dramatic improvement on the dividend of terrestrial frequencies available to countries when DVB-T2 is deployed.

“The new service is an exciting pay television service which delivers great value and will give television lovers access to news, children’s programming, documentaries, series and movies – opening up a world of new and exciting family entertainment at a price everyone can afford,” he said.

GOtv bouquets, he said, offer great family entertainment channels and viewers will be able to enjoy fantastic selection of local and international channels at a very pocket friendly price.

Some of the channels that will be available to subscribers include Discovery World, Super sports select, E! Entertainment, Channel O, Magic World, Africa magic +, eTV Africa, amongst others.

Equally speaking, the Marketing Manager, GOtv, Mr. Akin Salu said that the channels were carefully selected to meet different users’ needs and that subscribers would enjoy improved pictures and sound quality synonymous with digital television.

“GOtv is uniquely placed to become the home of African television. We firmly believe that there is enough rich content created here on the continent to make a case for packaging great African entertainment and we have committed ourselves to making this a reality thus, offering channels made in Africa for Africa,” said Akin.

For a special price of N9, 000, subscribers will have a digital TV-decoder, 3 months subscription at no charge, and enjoy a total of 33 channels for GOtv plus and 26 channels for GOtv.

He maintained that the new GOtv does not require a satellite dish and there is no installation cost, stressing that all it requires is a GOtv decoder and a stub or grid antenna.

Remmy Nweke
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