Despite Ghana, said to be migrating from Analogue to Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) since March 2016, the move has, however, has faced a number of hiccups.
Many Ghanaians who were expected to relish the DTT experience in 2017 through the migration will have to wait, as the deadline from analogue to digital transmission has been moved to the second quarter of 2018.
Paul Freeman, Vice President Marketing, SES in an interview with Goldstreet Business said although Ghana has been slow towards digitizing, his outfit has noticed a big development in the span of four years; that is between the year 2014 and 2017.
‘’Ghana is not digitizing any slower than any other African country but it has rather started a bit later,’’ he stated.
Freeman made this known in Accra on the sidelines of the Satellite Monitor Study of the Ghanaian television market.
Freeman indicated that from a research and data view, Ghana has one of the highest penetration market of homes with satellite television in terms of percentage.
With 69 percent of homes currently receiving digital television signals, up from 40 percent in 2015, Freeman said satellite television has expanded across the country.
He said after some 3,600 interviews were conducted in the fourth quarter of 2017, SES has expanded its market reach to four million homes with digital televisions as compared to two million in 2015.
“Despite the slow process of migration, the Ghanaian market has adapted very quickly and successfully in satellite television transmission,’’ he added.
According to him, findings from the research also showed that there is an economic opportunity for the government by way of digitization through consistent content and additional advertisement.
Freeman recommended that as the DTT migration begins to roll out, there will be a prospective market that continues to have a combination of digital terrestrial television and satellite television that allows the country to reach full digitization.
By Mawuli Y. Ahorlumegah