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Thursday 16 August 2018

MWAKYEMBE TOUTS FREE-TO-AIR SAGA RETHINK

The Minister for Information, Culture, Arts and Sport, Dr Harrison Mwakyembe, has called upon the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA), to provide guidance to Azam, Multichoice and Zuku pay TVs if they are interested in providing free-to-air (FTA) services.

“As long as they have agreed and have withdrawn the FTA from their decoders, but have shown interest and want to air them, then TCRA should give them guidance on procedures to follow so that they do so with the right licences and according to the law,” he stated.

Dr Mwakyembe told a press conference in Dar es Salaam on Tuesday that if the law had any shortcomings on the matter then procedures are known on how to amend it.

“It is the right of every Tanzanian to access news, and it is by law that these local channels should provide the service without payment to every individual and that is what the government wants to its people,” he further stated.

He explained that together with the explanations offered by the Minister for Works, Transport and Communications, Engineer Isaac Kamwelwe, there is still a great knowledge gap and confusion to people on the removal of FTA on Azam, Multichoice and Zuku decoders.

Giving more light on the matter he said, Azam, Multichoice and Zuku interfered with another groups in the market and disturbed the whole system.

According to the Minister, there are two roles on the whole matter, one is to prepare the content and the other is to air it.

TBC, ITV, Star TV, Channel Ten, Clouds TV, their major role is to prepare content.

“This group has rules to follow, among which the viewer is not charged on the content, rather just pays the purchase price of the decoder; their source of income is from adverts and its content should be generated from within the country,” he explained.

He continued saying that companies like Digitek, Continental, Agape, Star Media have the licence to air FTA; and to attain this licence, they have to abide by several rules.

The rules include to pay a fee of 400,000 US dollars, should have infrastructure to air contents that are installed in the country, the cost of the decoders should be low, its content should originate from Tanzania, and its infrastructure should include towers and satellite.

Daily News

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