The National Broadcasting Commission has condemned the confusion surrounding the live broadcast of the 2023 African Cup of Nations days before the tournament kicks off.
They are concerned that the broadcast rights for the competition in Nigeria may violate the NBC Broadcast Code, designed to safeguard the interests of the Nigerian TV industry and viewers.
The code prohibits the practice of international rights being “bundled” in a way that negatively impacts the transmission and availability of rights in the country. Bundling refers to the practice of rights being sold on a multi-territory or continental basis instead of a national one, where multinational interests are allowed to take precedence over national ones.
“We are troubled that with 4 days until what we expect is one of the most eagerly awaited TV events of 2024, there is the possibility of no coverage for millions of football fans of the Super Eagles, a spokesman for NBC said.
It has emerged that Pan-African pay TV broadcasters such as Startimes, who claimed last week to have the exclusive rights to the event and SuperSport, have insisted to NWTV and CAF that they must have Pan-African rights to serve their markets outside of Nigeria.
The decision to award rights to them has delayed the finalisation of NWTV/CAF’s exclusive award of rights on Free-To-Air (FTA) after a completed bidding process won by local sports broadcasters.
FTA is where every fan can access the games for free and with just 4 days remaining to the start of the competition, the delay hampers the efforts of any FTA broadcaster to secure the requisite broadcast sponsorship to cover the cost of the rights to the event.
NBC said it has written to NWTV and CAF to express its displeasure as well as raise concerns around the potential violations of the broadcast code, stating that unless the issues they have raised are given expedited consideration, there is an imminent possibility of a blackout in Nigeria.
“There has been little coverage so far of build-up programming,” the spokesman for NBC said To know that this may be as a result of interests that ride roughshod over the interests of Nigerian broadcasters and fans is not something that NBC is prepared to sit back on.”