Buhari Approves 67 New Broadcast Licences

,,,,,No fewer than 67 additional broadcast licenses have been approved by President Muhammadu Buhari, bringing the total number of licenses issued by the administration since 2015 to 473.

Yesterday in Abuja, Malam Balarabe Shehu Ilelah, the director general of the National Broadcasting Agency (NBC), announced the approval and promised that the commission would soon start distributing the licenses.

He characterized the endorsement as a significant step forward for pluralism and freedom of expression. 47 of the newly licensed organizations, according to him, were FM radio stations, while four were DTT radio stations and five were community radio stations.

,,,,,,According to him, there are currently 740 operational broadcast stations in the nation, and this number is projected to rise as more stations receive presidential approval. Ilelah further revealed that the president had given the NBC permission to hire more employees to monitor broadcast stations across the nation and to purchase cutting-edge equipment for nationwide broadcast monitoring in preparation for the upcoming election.

In spite of difficulties encountered during the Digital Switch Over (DSO) implementation, he continued, the commission was adamant about providing Nigerians with game-changing digital broadcasting by utilizing Simulcrypt and collaborating with NTA Star Nigeria and ITS. The NBC also revealed that 302 stations have received fines for breaking the rules of the 2023 election campaign, which started four months ago.

,,,,,Mrs. Franca Ayitor, Director of NBC Broadcast Management, provided a breakdown of the number of the sanctioned stations. The erring stations, according to her, have two weeks to pay the fines; else, the fines will graduate. Ayitor reports that 196 stations received warnings and 17 stations received fines. She claimed that 93 stations received reprimands while 63 stations received warnings.

…..She added that the fines had been paid by 70% of the stations. According to Ayitor, the affected stations did not adhere to the commission’s standards for the caliber and content of political programs that were distributed to the stations.