Manufacturers and broadcasters interested in the emerging African radio and television market came together at the 9th biennial conference in the Nigerian capital Abuja between 23th and 25th October 2012. This year’s conference had a simple theme: “Content Rules”. At the dawn of the digital switch for television and radio, the “King is Content” has a major role to play in Africa and this is what the organisers wanted to bring in focus this year.
It was a great honour for the Consortium and me personally to be invited to take part in the conference to speak especially about the latest updates on the spread of DRM around the world. I tried to give a broadcasters’ perspective and also talk about the receiver developments. During my presentation I could immediately notice that the audience was totally aware about the DRM technology and the big challenge to switch the analogue radio to the digital offer. Content is king indeed and DRM allows the broadcasters to provide up to 4 services simultaneously on the same frequency. In order to make the digital world attractive to the listeners, the broadcasters have to improve and diversify their content. In Nigeria an option would be to broadcast the news at the same time in the different major languages spoken in the country like Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo and English, for example. Another option would be to diversify the news, concentrating or dedicating each service to one particular genre like current news, business news, sport and culture, for example.
In parallel with the Africast conference participants had access to impressive exhibition highlighting equipment representing all the major aspects of broadcasting, going from the production, studios equipment to the transmitters and antennas. Nigeria has already demonstrated a great dynamism in adopting new broadcasting technologies, getting up to date with the latest technologies available. The international manufacturers are also aware of the importance of the Nigerian market, one of the leading countries in Africa in matter of new technology.
The Africast team and the National Broadcasting Commission were most welcoming and DRM had a good response at the conference.
Voice of Nigeria is currently broadcasting internationally and regularly in DRM.
Jean-Francois Kipp (Transradio)
