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The Federal Government has set December 2028 as the deadline for Nigeria’s final switch from analogue to digital television broadcasting, the National Broadcasting Commission’s Director-General, Charles Ebuebu, said in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Abuja on Tuesday.
Ebuebu described the date as marking the final analogue switch-off, framing it as the endpoint of a multi-phase process rather than a single cutover. “We put a timeline for analogue switch-off. Before that time, a lot of things will be put in place. This is just phase one,” he said.
Subsequent phases, according to Ebuebu, will address pay television services, studio development, and the establishment of designated production centers for content creators. He said the commission plans to disclose these phases publicly only after consultations with key stakeholders, including the Broadcasting Organisation of Nigeria, to secure industry buy-in before implementation.
Ebuebu also pointed to progress on audience measurement, an area tied to how broadcasters and advertisers will value content and airtime in a digital environment. He said a proof of concept had been completed covering roughly 7,000 homes in Lagos, with implementation now underway in Abuja.
A central piece of the transition, Ebuebu said, is the spectrum freed up once analogue broadcasting ends. He described the freed spectrum as a strategic national asset that will be professionally valued before being allocated to sectors including telecommunications, applications, and financial services. Asked to estimate its worth, Ebuebu declined to name a precise figure but said the value runs upward of $50 billion, pending assessment by external consultants who will determine the actual valuation ahead of allocation.
On the question of obsolete broadcasting equipment rendered unusable by the switch, Ebuebu said the commission is developing a policy informed by expert input and international best practices. He said the Digital Switch Over White Paper requires broadcasters to separate content production from signal transmission, with transmission handled by dedicated signal distributors such as NIGCOMSAT. Where possible, he said, obsolete analogue equipment may be repurposed, while government involvement will be sought to absorb assets that cannot be reused, in order to prevent environmental hazards from accumulating industrial waste.
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Nigeria’s digital switchover has a history of missed deadlines dating back more than a decade. The country initially committed to switching from analogue to digital terrestrial television as part of a global standard set by the International Telecommunication Union, which had set June 2015 as a target date for member states to complete the transition. Nigeria missed that date, along with several subsequent internally set targets, as previous rollout phases in cities including Jos, Abuja, and other pilot locations faced funding gaps, decoder distribution problems, and coordination issues between broadcasters and signal distributors.
The separation of content production from transmission, which Ebuebu cited as a requirement of the Digital Switch Over White Paper, reflects a structural model used in several countries’ digital broadcasting transitions, where a small number of licensed signal distributors carry multiple broadcasters’ content over shared digital multiplexes rather than each station operating its own standalone analogue transmitter. NIGCOMSAT’s role as a signal distributor under this framework positions the state-owned satellite operator as a key infrastructure provider in the new broadcasting architecture, alongside any other distributors the NBC may license.
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The spectrum to be freed by the analogue switch-off falls within frequency bands globally recognized as valuable for mobile broadband and other wireless services, which is the basis for Ebuebu’s characterization of the asset’s multi-billion-dollar worth. Countries that have completed similar digital switchovers have typically auctioned or allocated the freed spectrum to telecommunications operators seeking capacity for expanding data services, a process Ebuebu indicated Nigeria intends to follow once professional valuation is complete.
No specific figures were given for how many Nigerian households currently rely on analogue signals, nor did Ebuebu specify a cost estimate for the broader digital migration infrastructure, decoder subsidies, or compensation for broadcasters affected by the equipment transition.
