Seventy days after the migration to digital broadcasting that started with Dar es Salaam, Tanzania media houses are demanding that the regulator reverts to analogue because most TV set owners are currently contending with blank screens.

Tanzania started a gradual switching off of analogue transmission on December 31. Dar es Salaam was the first region to go digital and the migration is scheduled to continue in phases until the whole country is covered.

About 20 per cent of Tanzanians access TV broadcasting but media houses, under the auspices of the Media Owners Association of Tanzania (Moat), say half of these Tanzanians cannot now access programmes because they can’t afford the set top boxes.

Moat chairman Reginald Mengi told reporters yesterday that switching off analogue transmission has denied people their right to information as stipulated in Article 18 of the country’s constitution.

The Tanzania Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TCCRA) should therefore revise its decision to switch off the analogue and run it side by side with the digital transmission in a transition period so that wananchi can continue to enjoy their right to information, he said.
“And this constitutional right should be given without any further delay,” Mr Mengi insisted.

According to the Moat chief, directives from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) sets the deadline for the analogue switch off (ASO) as 2015, but countries heavily dependent on analogue transmission have been allowed to run the two systems simultaneously for five years.

Moat feels the process was unnecessarily hastened without considering the necessity to develop broadcasting infrastructure and enable the people to afford the set top boxes.

Mr Mengi gave example of countries which took many years before they fully switched to digital broadcasting as the UK that took 14 years, the US 11 years, Spain 10 years and Japan eight years.

“If countries with economic and resource management development required such time before the switch, why did we rush?” he wondered.
He noted that countries whose people have good incomes like the US subsidised its citizens through a provision of $40 (TSh64,000) per household, adding that this was something that could be considered in Tanzania.

Giving the 70-day experience, the Moat chief said TV stations in the country were facing serious economic problems due to reduced advertisement and an increase in operational costs.

He said advertisers were unhappy with a reduced number of targeted audiences currently being reached by TV stations, something which reduces the relevance of their costly adverts.

The Sahara Communications deputy chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Mr Samuel Nyara, said other impacts of digital migration lie on the collapse of the regional TV stations.

He said the rushed digital migration ignored infrastructure development which could enable community-based and regional TV stations to continue with dissemination of information.

“The arrangement in digital migration demands that all transmissions are routed through Dar es Salaam first before they are transmitted to specific areas upcountry, something which threatens the survival of most of them” he said.

Clouds Media director of Strategy and Development, Mr Ruge Mutahaba, said the increased operation costs places local TV stations in a poor position to compete with their international counterparts.

According to Mr Mutahaba, local TV stations are supposed to pay $3,800 (TSh6 million) as licence fees for the coverage of one region, something which hinders dissemination of information, education and entertainment.

“We can’t compete under these circumstances… we need to evaluate these issues and let Tanzanians decide,” he said. Efforts to get comments from TCRA were unsuccessful.