MTN Nigeria Acquires Pay-TV License From NBC

Africa’s leading cellular telecommunications company MTN Nigeria, has successfully acquired digital pay TV broadcasting rights from the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) for a sum put at around N34 billion .

Although there is no official Press information from MTN, the Director General of the NBC, Emeka Mba made this known during his world media briefing last week in Lagos.

According to reports, the move is beneficial for both parties as MTN will use part of the 700 MHz spectrum to provide pay TV services while the NBC has announced the fund will be used in funding the digital switch over.

The amount received from the MTN accounts for about 50 per cent of the initial estimated budget of N70billion naira.

The fund raised will be channelled towards Nigeria’s Digital Switch Over and should help in getting the plan back on course since the June 17, 2015 deadline elapsed.

However, the NBC in alliance with some West African countries has set a new deadline of June 20, 2017 as the time it should be able to guarantee digital switch over and achieve analogue switch off.