Our correspondent,  reported that the
House of Representatives on Tuesday yesterday, mandated its Committee on
Information, National Orientation, Ethics and Values to investigate the
licence status of GOTV in the provision of Digital Terrestrial
Television Services in Nigeria.

The committee is also to engage the
National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) to enforce the pay-per view
scheme on the digital television broadcasting service providers for the
benefit of Nigerians.
 The committee was given eight weeks startimg from yesterday
to carry out the investigation and report back to the House for further
legislative action

The resolutions followed the adoption
of a motion titled “Call for Investigation of the License Status of
GOTV in the Provision of Digital Terrestrial Television Services in
Nigeria’’, sponsored Rep. Jones Onyereri (PDP-Imo).

Moving the motion, Onyeriri argued
that GOTV does not possess the licence to provide digital terrestrial
television services in Nigeria.

Onyeriri said “Details Nigeria
Limited” was the company which obtained a Digital Mobile TV (DSTV
MOBILE) for 10 Nigerian cities in 2007.However, the licence granted to
Details Nigeria Limited was converted GOTV to provide digital
terrestrial television through a high-tech manoeuvre without due
process and in violation of the provisions of the law. The National
Broadcasting Commission is empowered to regulate the operations of
Radio and Television stations, including Cable Television Services,
direct broadcasting and any other medium of broadcasting in Nigeria.

Section 2 (1) (g) of the
Act empowers the Commission to receive processes and consider
applications for the establishment, ownership or operations of radio
and television stations in Nigeria.

The section of the Act specifically
empowers the Commission to control and regulate the operations as well
as upholding the principles of equity and fairness in the broadcasting
industry.

In violation of the Act, GOTV, a
subsidiary of Multi-Choice Nigeria, started operations of Digital
Terrestrial Television Broadcasting in April 2012 at Ibadan, Port
Harcourt and Lagos without passing through the due process of bidding
for the private signal distribution.

Nigerians are made to pay for what
they do not consume through the monthly subscription scheme presently
obtainable in the service charges of major Digital Television
Broadcasting service providers like DSTV, Star times and GOTV.

This is as against the pay per view
scheme obtainable in other countries like USA, UK, Brazil, France, and
even South Africa,’’ 

. (NAN)