AS you read this material AFRICAST 2023 is running in Lagos. It began yesterday after a most underserved but ignoble hiatus which remains a manifest display of inertia to scholarship by some people in the broadcast regulatory Commission. Africast is the intellectual creation of the Commission aimed at harmonising the understanding of the various stakeholders of the sector in order to create an industry that caters for their taste and also serves the interest of society.
It actually looks quite tantalising to have the opportunity to listen to all these personalities. Since broadcasting was deregulated in 1992, so much has changed. Content production has moved from analogue to digital, transmission has been terrestrial, then satellite and ultimately digital broadcasting which Nigeria has not been able to green light.
It is Ebuebu’s concern to address all that, which is why Africast 2023 presents an opportunity for a pitch. If I had the opportunity to write that speech, I would know what to do. It would have been an opportunity to address a plethora of fears; and they are indeed many. The story of the deregulated broadcast industry is nothing new to the new director general. As they say in my part of the world, broadcasting is where he has cut his legal teeth.