MIPAN, NBC Chart Nigeria’s Digital Switch Over At Webinar, Unveil Plans On FreeTV, Audience Measurement System
The Media Independent Practitioners Association of Nigeria (MIPAN), in partnership with the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), are charting a smooth analogue-to-digital TV switch over, as revealed in a webinar conducted recently.
The session which was titled “The Future of TV Is Here: Understanding Nigeria’s Digital Switch Over,” brought together regulators and industry executives to discuss the country’s transition to digital broadcasting and the infrastructure being built to support it. Two presentations anchored the discussion, focusing on the technical and commercial pillars of Nigeria’s Digital Switch Over (DSO) programme: the FreeTV platform and a new national Audience Measurement System (AMS).
Clementine Usman-Wamba, the NBC’s Head of Digital Switch Over, presented FreeTV, framing it as an inclusion and creative-economy initiative rather than a purely technical platform. She said no Nigerian should lose access to information, entertainment, or cultural programming once analogue television is switched off.
According to her presentation, FreeTV will operate as a genuinely free-to-air service, requiring no subscription payment or encryption, and will be receivable on existing DVB-T2 and DVB-S2 compatible equipment without a proprietary decoder. The platform currently carries 88 local channels spanning news, entertainment, sports, music, movies, lifestyle, children’s programming, and state broadcasters, with more channels in onboarding and a near-term target of at least 100. The FreeTV app has recorded approximately 220,000 downloads since its June 2026 launch.
Participating broadcasters are required to meet a minimum 60% local-content requirement alongside technical and programme-guide standards, and currently benefit from an 18-month carriage-free window to support the platform’s growth. Six regional production studios are in development to decentralise content production, alongside exploratory partnerships with telecom operators to extend FreeTV into connected viewing environments. The NBC is targeting 95% household connectivity to FreeTV by the fourth quarter of 2027 and projects the initiative could create up to 100,000 jobs within three years.
In the second presentation, Patrick Gomes, Chief Operating Officer of First Media and Entertainment Integrated Limited (FMEIL), detailed the rollout of Nigeria’s national Audience Measurement System, which FMEIL was appointed to design and deliver by the NBC and the Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria. The initial focus is Television Audience Measurement, which will begin in Lagos ahead of a phased expansion to Abuja, Port Harcourt, Kano, and other markets across the country’s six geopolitical zones.
A national establishment survey has been completed with a sample of 60,000 households, with a proposed second wave of 30,000 households still to be confirmed. The Lagos leg of the survey covered nearly 7,000 television households, forming the basis for a representative panel recruitment process. Following a 20-household pilot, recruitment of the first 100 Lagos households is underway, with a target of over 300 installed households by the end of October 2026, building toward a full panel of 1,500 households and roughly 1,800 PeopleMeter devices to account for multi-set homes. The full Lagos installation is estimated to take around 100 days, with the technology backend and data centre operating out of Bulgaria, supported by local mobile connectivity.
Both presentations underscored a shared theme: Nigeria’s digital switch over is about more than infrastructure upgrades, it is an effort to build an inclusive, content-rich broadcasting ecosystem alongside the trusted data systems needed to sustain it commercially. MIPAN said it would continue engaging stakeholders across the media and broadcast industry to track progress on the DSO programme and its impact on the creative economy and the wider marketing ecosystem.
