As Nigeria prepares to switch over to digital broadcasting in June, the Advertisers Association of Nigeria (ADVAN) plans a stakeholders’ forum to discuss post-digital migration.
The forum, organised in collaboration with ACC Broadcast Multimedia, operators of WAWOO Tv, seeks to educate advertisers on the scope, effects, challenges, and opportunities in the migration from analogue to digital spectrum.
“In 2015, after the migration, broadcasting will change the way Nigerians consume the electronic media and that will affect advertising. This will have a significant effect in the way we buy and consume media.
“The forum is therefore to make all stakeholders in the eco-system prepare for the era”, Kachi Onubogu, a member of ADVAN and Commercial Director of Promasidor said at the unveiling of the plan for the forum billed for January 22 and 23.
Don Obaseki, ACC Broadcast Multimedia Chief Executive Officer, confirmed that major players in the digital migration process have been assembled to provide comprehensive information and how it will affect electronic media advertising.
“Aside from the learning derivative, this event, holding at Planet One in Lagos, provides an ample opportunity for all involved in the broadcast value-chain to have direct interface with the major purchase-decision makers who make up ADVAN’s membership and who contributed more than 95 per cent of N103 billion of total advertising spend in Nigeria in 2013,” he said.
Those lined up include Obaseki and National Broadcasting Commission Director General, Emeka Mba.
Obaseki said since the commencement of radio broadcasting in 1932 in Nigeria (as empire service of the British Broadcasting Corporation, BBC) and the establishment in 1959 of Western Nigerian Television (WNTV), digital migration will be the most radical overhaul.
He stressed that June 17, 2015 is the deadline set by the International Telecommunications Union for broadcasting to transit from analogue to digital.
“It is not a Nigerian initiative, but a global imperative. Nigeria must experience the digital switchover, or else we will stand the risk of being isolated from the world’s broadcasting community.
“The advertisers pay the broadcast bill, they ‘pay the piper’. The conference is thus designed to aid them comprehend the new digital tune,” Obaseki explained.
 plans a stakeholders’ forum to discuss post-digital migration.){kind=link}