Communication Ministry Dodges GIBA …as It Meets Stakeholders Over DTT

The Ministry of Communications has met with a section of stakeholders in the government’s planned migration of television broadcasting from analog platform to a digital platform.

The list of stakeholders at the meeting which the Communications Ministry said it was a platform that it was going to use to collect inputs into its plans to rollout the migration included the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC).

Others are the Information Ministry, National Communications Authority, National Media Commission, the Actors Guild of Ghana, and broadcasters already on the DTT platforms available.

The rest are the Film Producers Association of Ghana, the Ghana independent content producers association and Ghana Institute of Engineers.

Conspicuously missing was the Ghana Independent Broadcasters Association of Ghana (GIBA). GIBA has been the body at loggerheads with the Ministry and the NCA over an attempt to use the migration to institute Conditional Access (CA) in place of Free to Air.

GIBA has said that such a change will be unfavorable to its members since the majority of TV operators need the huge viewership to convince advertisers to do business with them.

GIBA has also argued that the CA regime will be an affront to the freedom of press because such a regime will only limit TV receivers to a number of government-determined allotted channels.

A few weeks back, GIBA accused the Ministry of engaging in criminal behaviour just to ensure that the CA is instituted. Among others, it said that the Ministry doctored guidelines by the Ghana Standards Authority on the migration.

However, addressing the stakeholders at the meeting, Communication Minister, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful said those claims were not true. She also debunked assertions that government is trying to institute a stranglehold on broadcast media.

According to her, the meeting with stakeholders is aimed to collect inputs that will be factored into the Ministry’s final decision.