The National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) has revoked the broadcast licences of African Independent Television (AIT), Silverbirds\u00a0 Television, and a host of over 50 other broadcast stations for their indebtedness to the commission.<\/p>\n
The stations ramped up debts to the tune of N2.6 billion, the NBC Director-General, Balarabe Ilelah, told journalists in Abuja on Friday<\/p>\n
Ilelah announced a 24-hour ultimatum to the stations to go off air.<\/p>\n
He also ordered the commission\u2019s state offices to partner with security agencies to enforce the order.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the first batch, there are those who have not renewed their licence since 2015, 2016 and 2017. We are asking them to come and pay their licence fees.\u201d<\/p>\n
He explained that in May 2022, the commission published in the national dailies the list of licensees that are indebted to NBC, granted them two weeks to renew their licenses and pay their debts or consider their licenses revoked and frequencies withdrawn.<\/p>\n
According to him, \u201cthree months after the publication, some licensees are yet to pay their outstanding debts, in contravention of the NBC Act CAP N11, laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004, particularly section 10 (a) of the third schedule of the Act.,<\/p>\n
\u201cIn view of this development, the continued operation of the debtor stations is illegal and constitutes a threat to national security.<\/p>\n
\u201cTherefore, after due consideration, the NBC hereby announces the revocation of the licenses of the under-listed stations and give them 24 hours to their operations,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Among the affected stations are those owned by atate governments like Kogi, Katsina, Kaduna, Jigawa,\u00a0 Zamfara, Yobe, Kwara, Niger, Gombe, Lagos, Osun, Ogun, Ondo and Rivers<\/p>\n
Others are: Imo State Broadcasting Corporation, Anambra State Broadcasting Corporation, Cross River State Broadcasting Corporation, Bayelsa State Broadcasting Corporation, Borno State Broadcasting Corporation and Crowther FM Abuja were among the affected stations.<\/p>\n
He urged all broadcast stations who have not renewed their licenses for the current duration to do so within the next 30 days to avoid sanctions.<\/p>\n
He also called on all Internet Protocol Television and all other broadcast stations that are streaming online to register with the commission to avoid disconnection<\/p>\n
\u201cBroadcasters should note that, having a DTT or FM license doesn\u2019t warrant a broadcaster to stream online; they are two different licenses,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) has revoked the broadcast licences of African Independent Television (AIT), Silverbirds\u00a0 Television, and a host of over 50 other broadcast stations for their indebtedness to the commission. The stations ramped up debts to the tune of N2.6 billion, the NBC Director-General, Balarabe Ilelah, told journalists in Abuja on Friday Ilelah […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":59444,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[5053,5054,723],"class_list":["post-59441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-ait","tag-licences","tag-nbc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59441\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}