Lawyers have faulted the recent directive by the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) on the abolition of self-carriage status by broadcast entities, saying the 2014 Digital Switch Over Whitepaper the commission relied on to issue is an expired document and lacks the force of law.
Ahead of the commencement of the second phase of the DSO programme, which has proceeded in fits and starts, including two unmet deadlines, the NBC recently directed digital terrestrial television operators to reconfigure their transmission set-ups and transfer their carriage to either ITS or Pinnacle Communications Limited, the licensed signal distributors, with immediate effect.
The NBC, in a letter signed by its acting Director-General, Dr Armstrong Idachaba, said its directive on abolition of self-carriage is Section 10 of the 2014 DSO Whitepaper, which it said prescribes the splitting of broadcasting activities into content distribution and signal distribution. The commission stated that with the sp