Ibrahima Guimba-Saidou, Senior Vice President Africa for SES, examines the
possibilities that digital migration can offer to African broadcasting.
Africa is filled with creative people who excel at finding solutions. Think of the
stories you’ve read of people (often with little formal education) building
windmills to electrify their village. Or, the teams who are building computers and
tablets from scrap components.
The dawn of digitalisation (or digital migration) will provide more and better
opportunities for Africans to excel. Digital migration has the potential to increase
stability across the continent through an increase in access to information for
the general population. And, as television is a visual medium – even the illiterate
can access it.
It will also provide further opportunities for locally produced content and content
developers. The film industry in Africa is bound to grow and migration will mean
that more local “African’ content is created. Not only will these developers have
access to wider audiences but at the same time this may lead to new job
opportunities. Indeed a recent KPMG study suggests that digitalisation will also
positively impact GDP growth, unemployment rates and literacy levels.
However a key challenge to this growth remains the slow transition by many
countries and the concerns around the digital migration deadline of June 2015
being missed. I believe this deadline is unachievable at our current pace, unless
extraordinary measures are taken soon.
What is needed is co-operation. If similar standards can be agreed upon by
Africa countries, even regionally, this will help with the easy sharing of content.
This in turn would translate into cost savings for both the countries and the end-
users in terms of set-top boxes (STB).
There is a misconception that digital migration is expensive but we have a
different take on this. For the past couple of years, SES has traversed the
continent through our caravans or customer workshops to talk to stakeholders
and government to demonstrate the power of satellite and how we have
successfully assisted other countries to digitally migrate.
SES is dedicated to the African continent. We have three regional offices with
local teams in South Africa, Ghana and Ethiopia, as well as three teleport
networks partners in Ghana, Nigeria and Djibouti. We also hold specialised
training programmes for installers and broadcasters and bigger, knowledge-
sharing workshops, designed to build local expertise in the media and
broadcasting industry across the continent.
Top broadcasters in Africa are already partnering with SES to grow their
audiences in Africa. With nine satellites over Africa, and another to launch in
2014, our satellite capacity brings new opportunities to connect customers,
employees and TV audiences, enabling operators to deliver thousands of hours
of the latest TV content every day.
To achieve the digital migration deadline, it will be very important to ensure that
there are sufficient STBs and points of distribution in country. Countries should
consider both formal and informal distribution channels and subsidisation of the
STBs. I also think that non-urban areas need to be made a key focus for the roll
out. People in these areas will be limited in their ability to travel to main centres
and (because of their remote locations) they are the perfect beneficiaries of
satellite technology. Focusing on converting these constituents – and
positioning them as early adopters – will be important in obtaining the buy-in of
the wider population.
ICT is a blessing for the continent. One only has to look at the uptake of mobile
– and how Africa has overtaken the rest of the world in terms of number of
users (nearly one billion people and counting) – to see how easier access to
television and radio will usher in a significant positive change.
Some of the best examples are taking place in Kenya and South Africa. There is
significant growth in the number of bloggers – and those of them who are
making this their career. Improved access to internet infrastructure has meant
that they are able to share their content with a wider audience and in turn help
to inform and educate a wider population. The mobile phone will also become an
even more valuable tool as it is used increasingly for TV, internet access and
connecting Africans to each other and the world.
The sky really is the limit for this beautiful continent.
