Nigeria’s June 17 target for launching its digital television switchover has collided with a formal legal challenge from the Broadcasting Organization of Nigeria, which has accused the broadcast regulator of abandoning a legally gazette migration framework and substituting a satellite television operation that falls outside both Nigerian law and international broadcasting standards.
The National Broadcasting Commission and Nigerian Communications Satellite Limited had unveiled what they called a new Big Picture approach to digital migration, combining satellite, internet streaming, and terrestrial transmission under a single FreeTV platform that they said would deliver more than 100 channels to Nigerian homes at no additional cost. They fixed June 17 as the national launch date, with full analogue switch-off targeted for December 31, 2028.
BON, representing public and private television and radio stations nationwide, responded with a strongly worded letter accusing NBC of unilaterally abandoning the Digital Terrestrial Television migration model approved in Nigeria’s 2012 Digital Switchover White Paper, which it described as the only legally gazette framework governing the transition. The association said the satellite-first approach contradicted both the ITU’s GE06 Agreement and the domestically approved roadmap, which defined digital migration specifically as the transition from analogue terrestrial to digital terrestrial transmission.
The broadcasters warned that the new model threatened to leave what was known as the digital dividend, the valuable 700 and 800 MHz spectrum currently occupied by analogue signals, trapped and economically unproductive. That spectrum, if properly released, was expected to be sold to telecom operators for broadband expansion, generating over one billion dollars in auction proceeds for the federal government.
BON also raised a conflict of interest concern, accusing NBC of moving beyond its role as an independent regulator by positioning itself as a content aggregator on the FreeTV platform. It said this violated the separation of responsibilities between regulators, signal distributors, and content providers established in the 2012 roadmap. The association demanded that if the government intended to shift to satellite and streaming, NBC was legally required to suspend implementation and convene all statutory stakeholders to develop and gazette a new framework before proceeding.
NBC defended the revised approach, saying the original terrestrial-only model had become economically unsustainable given the cost of building and maintaining transmission towers nationwide. The commission said the hybrid model preserved the existing terrestrial infrastructure while adding satellite and IP delivery, and that the government had already paid for broadcasters’ carriage and technical services for an initial 18-month period to reduce financial pressure on operators. NBC said the transition would unlock Nigeria’s estimated 605 billion naira advertising market and create jobs across the broadcasting and creative economy.
NIGCOMSAT said the satellite underpinning the platform would remain operational until 2028 and would be replaced by two new satellites already under contract, with users not required to change equipment or reposition dishes because the replacement would operate on the same orbital slot.
