The Director-General of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), Mallam Is’haq Modibbo Kawu, has announced plans by the Commission to issue 200 new broadcast licences saying it was already processing 200 applications for licences to enable the establishment of another set of broadcasting stations in the country.
Mallam Kawu said: “At the moment, we have about 740 radio and television stations and we think that before long, this will increase because at the moment we are processing new licenses. For television, we are looking at possibility on the platform of our digital switch over to have up to 200 channels in Nigeria to enable us have different channels such as for the children, women, documentaries and several others so that when you tune television, you have a lot of channels that will satisfy different tastes.”
He made the disclosure in Ilorin while speaking at the fifth anniversary of the Fresh Insight Newspapers adding, the Nigeria broadcasting industry is one of the leading employers of labour in the country, with the sector boasting of 740 broadcasting stations comprising of radio and television stations.
According to him, “NBC gave licenses to 240 stations in September this year and by the time the new licenses are released, more job opportunity would be provided for the teaming unemployed youth in the country,” explaining that the deregulation in the broadcasting industry has opened up a lot of opportunities and advantages for the people of the country.
The NBC DG further disclosed that the Commission was working towards migrating 200 channels on the government digital switchover (Free TV) platform to enable people to tune to different programmes of their choice.
