Digital media is the fastest growing medium globally, and it has expanded the frontier lines, harbouring no boundaries. The digital media landscape has ensured that news is easily accessible from anywhere in the world. Radio stations have resorted to TV Radio, YouTube, and Twitter to spread their content faster and reach a global audience through digitalisation.
The era of smartphones has created easier and simpler access to stations than ever before, allowing radio stations to have a global reach of listeners.
The abovementioned is the view of Osita Okechukwu, the Director General at the Voice of Nigeria, speaking at the recently concluded “Broadcasting And Digital Media Convention” in Nigeria.
During the panel discussion on “Accelerating Universal Delivery of Fully-Digital”, Mr Okechukwu mentioned that the Voice of Nigeria recently conducted a study where they had mapped out the different time zones in the world that use FM frequency; he indicated that five of the countries that share the same time zone no longer use transmission radio (FM radio). For this reason, the radio industry is compelled to go digital.
“Digitisation has enabled radio stations to transition. Digital radio stations have become viral, and stations can conduct live radio streaming. But, unfortunately, this has made the regulation process more strenuous.”
“When we mention digitisation, so much attention is directed toward television, but digitalisation has also affected how radio is conducted,” he stated.
In 1990 The Voice of Nigeria was the only licenced external broadcaster in Nigeria. However, today, because of digital media’s widespread, it is now more than ever challenging to regulate the industry.
To watch Mr Osita Okechukwu’s video snippet answering BMA’s posed question, ‘What are the lessons to be learnt by those operating radio stations within Nigeria still using Frequency Modulation (FM)?’, CLICK/TAP HERE!