To alleviate the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic on the industry, terrestrial broadcast stations in Nigeria have been granted a two-month licence fee waiver.
Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, announced this decision on Wednesday, May 6, during a meeting with the Broadcasting Organisations of Nigeria (BON) in Abuja.
The Minister also approved the request for the distribution of protective equipment to some community broadcast stations across the country by the NBC, emphasizing the federal government’s holistic approach to addressing the damage inflicted by COVID-19 on the creative industry.
Lai Mohammed emphasized the critical role of the Creative Industry in the nation’s economy, stating, “It creates the highest number of jobs after Agriculture, especially for the youth. Therefore, there is no doubt that we need a collective and government-supported approach in dealing with the immediate, short and long term palliatives and initiatives for the industry, in order to mitigate the effect of the pandemic on the sector.”
BON’s chairman, Sa’a Ibrahim, urged state governments to provide adequate funding for the running of the state-owned media houses to prevent the sector from imminent collapse due to declining revenue.
Furthermore, the federal government was urged to grant a one-year moratorium in the payment of Annual Operating License fees payable to the NBC, approve tax rebates for the broadcast stations, and provide guarantees or comforts to de-risk the loans required by the Broadcast Industry to enable Independent Private Broadcasters to access credit facilities.