10 key points from Simon Kolawole’s NBC treatise
The Publisher of The Cable (an online newspaper), Simon Kolawole, recently lent his voice to the ongoing national debate on the revised 6th edition of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) code.
Since the revised code was released, industry stakeholders have been criticising the new regulations which seeks to take away exclusivity in the broadcast industry, enforce content sub-licensing and also empower NBC to regulate the prices at which content is sub-licensed even to direct competitors.
Here are 10 key points from his article “Killing the broadcast industry softly” that explains why the new code is as deadly as coronavirus:
1. Criminalising exclusivity: The selling point of PayTV is to offer what the competitor cannot give, taking away the right to exclusivity will kill the business.
2. It will kill competition: The new code will not promote competition as said by director general of NBC, Prof Armstrong Idachaba, it will only succeed in killing it.
3. It will discourage investors: A rational investor will hold back before investing in Nigeria if the new code becomes effective. According to Kolawole, free market economies thrive on respect for intellectual property, product differentiation, innovation and the right to charge a fair price.
4. The new code will kill innovation: Content creators will no longer stress their brain to create competitive contents when they know NBC is there to breastfeed them.
5. It will deter investment in local content production: Investors will no longer go the extra mile to invest in acquiring rights to top-class contents when they know they can just fold their arms and wait for others to do all the hard work and then they will be forced by NBC to sub-license at a regulated cost.
6. Sub-licensing sporting rights: When rights to a live sporting event are being auctioned, there is no guarantee that a licensee will be granted the right to sub-license. If a licensee approaches the rights owner for a sub-license clause, the licensee will be opened to a further hike in the fee.
7. The code exceeds the mandate of NBC: According to the Nigerian copyright law, it is the content producer and not NBC that determines who to share content with and what price to demand.
8. An erosion of value of original rights: Forcing a licensee, who has acquired the rights to a content through a competitive bidding and payment of a competitive price, to share with its competitors at a regulated price is an erosion of the value of the original rights.
9. NBC needs to consult stakeholders: In modern times, stakeholders are usually carried along when industry rules are being made. Not consulting stakeholders before rolling out the new regulations portrays NBC as someone who has an axe to grind with some operators.
10. The provisions of the convoluted code will not develop the broadcast industry and cannot achieve the good intentions the director general of NBC claimed it is created to achieve.
