A CIVIL society organisation, the Media Rights Agenda, (MRA) has asked the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) to disclose the status of payment of licence fees by all broadcasting platforms operating in Nigeria.
In a statement signed by its Communications Officer, Idowu Adewale, the MRA also sought the amount of indebtedness of broadcast stations to the NBC, especially in terms of licence fees.
The request, made pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act, 2011, was addressed to the Director-General of the commission, Mallam Balarabe Shehu Ilelah.
The MRA requested, in the application, the status of payment of each of the licensed broadcasting stations from the date of its licence to date of the request.
It added, “Besides, for broadcasting corporations that are owned by various State Governments, which were included in the list of broadcasting stations whose broadcast licencles were announced by the Commission as announced by its Director-General in his press briefing on Friday, August 19, 2022, the NBC should provide a breakdown of the amount of indebtedness by each of the radio stations and each of the television stations owned by the respective State-owned broadcasting corporations.”
The NBC had on August 19, 2022 revoked the broadcast licences of Silverbird TV, AIT, Raypower FM, Rhythm FM and some other stations.
Ilelah said the revocation followed the stations’ failure to renew their broadcast licences.
He directed the Commission’s state offices to liaise with security agencies to ensure the shutdown of the operations of the stations within the next 24 hours.
However, on August 26, 2022, the NBC suspended the shut-down.
Saying the suspension was temporary, Ilelah attributed it to a follow-up meeting the NBC held with executives of the Broadcasting Organisations of Nigeria (BON) and other critical stakeholders in the industry.
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