The Director General of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), Mallam Is’haq Modibbo Kawu at the 5th anniversary of the Fresh Insight Summit, held at the Banquet Hall, Ilorin said that the deregulation in broadcasting sector has birthed avalanche of opportunities for the Nigerian populace.
The DG, further revealed that the commission is currently processing 200 licenses for various broadcasting stations which will advantageously shore up the number existing ones in the country.
“NBC gave licenses to 240 stations in September this year and by the time the new licenses are released, more job opportunity would be provided for the teaming unemployed youth in the country.
He however noted that the commission was working assiduously to ensure the addition of 200 channels on the platform of government digital switch over (Free TV) to allow people the opportunity to tune to different programmes of their choice.
“Last September we gave 243 licenses, as I’m talking to you we are expecting another set of almost 200 licenses, so in terms of the quantity of stations and opportunity for people to be employed in broadcasting the industry is a sector to be reckon with.
At the moment, we have about 740 radio and television stations and we think that before long, this will increase because at the moment we are processing new licenses. For television, we are looking at possibility on the platform of our digital switch over to have up to 200 chanels in Nigeria to enable us have different channels such as for the children, women, documentaries and several others so that when you tune television, you have a lot of channels that will satisfy different tastes,” he added.