senga, am directing this to you man, i blive you have info about daarsat, how about tellin us wat is happenin on dat end and lleave myfriend alone lol. just want to know we should still have faith that anoda major competitor is comin or not. wish you guys luck wit it though

Hi delvinmaya
I have nothing to do with Daar just keep my head to the ground for info. I would like to know what sat they are going to use as Eutelsat is full until summer next year when w7 comes on line.
Then you will see some major players coming into the Nigerian Market and Nigeria will have all round good content. Hitv offer the best football coverage, no denying that, but there is more to life than football.
All I was wanting to know when will they get a return on their investment after spending all this money, for me the figures don't add up.
The new tender for the EPL comes out next September and they will have to go deep into their pockets again, without a return on their first investment.

hi all more info on daarsat,-"WE want a nation where everyone could have access to equal opportunity and aspire to be anything in the land. My father was a chief clerk in government office and my mother sold Ankara (local fabrics) in Ibadan just to see us through. Technically, I am the son of nobody. I simply aspired"

With these words, Chief Raymond Aleogho Dokpesi told reporters recently that DAAR Communications, owners of African Independent Television (AIT) and Raypower F.M now belong to the Nigerian people.

"We are simply holding it in trust for them."

Dokpesi, a doctorate degree holder in Marine Engineering, said, he got to his present position not due to any form of Godfatherism or otherwise but because life has great opportunities for everyone and neither governments nor individuals can scuttle that.

He explained that for Nigerians to buy into the dream of organised private broadcasting exemplified by DAAR Communications Plc, public offering means that "these people believe in us and our modest achievement."

With the 100 per cent success of the public offering conducted by the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), DAAR Communications wants to change the face of broadcasting in Africa.

"We want Nigerians to aspire for greatness and this is possible.

"This forum is to acknowledge the support of our friends in the media, print and electronic. We are sincerely grateful to those people who have supported us tremendously, both as individuals as well as using the platform of your organisations, to support the growth and development of DAAR Communications.

For some of you, you will recall that the development aspect of DAAR Communications faced a lot of challenges about year 2000 when we had receiver managers take over the premises of Alagbado in Lagos. And a lot of people thought that was the end of the organisation, after all, we said private broadcasting would never thrive in Nigeria. That it was absolute madness and this man called Raymond Dopkesi came alone, dazzled everybody, thinking that it was something that is feasible, "

"But thanks to your support at that time, thanks to the support of millions of Nigerians, we were able to weather that storm, we managed to get ourselves back on the track. And like I said at that time that the issues that DAAR Communications were confronted with, were not economic issues but political. It was out of the desire of the government at that time to really bring DAAR Communications and private broadcasters to their kneels. That was why we found ourselves in the situation that we were in. But if God has fought for one, you don't start wearing gloves and start looking for a ring! You can only glorify, thank God and everybody that saw us through the challenges at that time.

"Soon after 2000 crisis, we came back on air in October 2001 after we had run skeletal services both on radio and TV, and as soon as we just settled down to start running properly, around June/July 2002, Abuja office where we were operating from, Labour House, was set ablaze with the fire bomb. Now, that still remains a lot of mystery, just like several deaths that have taken place in Nigeria. But we had it on good authority that it was the soldiers that were advancing to Zak Biam at that time, on their way, they had to silence Raypower and AIT and the place was set ablaze. Well, those are the things of development in a developing country. And that compelled us to start looking for accommodation and permanent site. That is how we were able to get to this virgin land as it were at that time in Abuja.

"I remember my colleagues who came here first, the trees and plants that were here were higher than this AIT building. There were busy animals, and there were people that were farming all around. By the time we came in, they captured our people and they wanted to sacrifice them to their gods. It took a lot of pleading to say that no, we were just allocated the land, and that we were not enemies, we wanted to be able to co-operate with them, and long negotiation started with the inhabitants. They have their village down there, and we had to pay them compensation for their crops, we had to plead with them, build them a school, buy uniform for the children, equip them with the assurance that we were here to uplift and assist them. And one of the major promises that we made that still remains quite un-fulfilled today, even when we had put our best efforts, is to get power to the village down there. We thought that the present Minister of the FCT when he was Minister of State for Power for the short period we did make effort to get power across here, but we were not quite successful. So, we ourselves here, have been running on Generators for most of the time, almost 99 per cent of the time.

"From then onward, we faced several other challenges. The third term saga, the perceived support for the members of the National Assembly against the Executives at that time, and a lot of miscarriage of information, it was just impossible to expressly talk about all the things that happened during that period. But for us in DAAR Communications and for most of the private broadcasters or private electronic media owners, the eight years of the Obasanjo administration was possibly the most unfriendly in the history of electronic media development in this country. Even the military - Babangida that had the courage to, first of all, deregulate broadcasting, Abacha that gave filip to it and so on, were much more positively placed to the growth of private electronic media than the eight years of this Obasanjo administration.

"But all that is history right now. Soon after the end of that administration, we started going back. In 1999/2000, we had thought of going to the Stock Exchange. Our intention was to meet the minimum five years requirement that the SEC placed for a company to have operated as a private limited liability company before coming to the stock exchange, when suddenly in 2000, we were accused of supporting Okadigbo, supporting members of the House of Representatives under Ghali Na'Aba that were determined to impeach the president, that we gave them the platform, these were the issues that necessitated the federal government getting in touch with the consortium of banks to demand the facilities that we had agreed on the repayment terms. But they insisted we should pay back within one week. I said, 'look the asset base of the company at that time was about N3.5 billion, and what we were owing was just about N400 million from the bank, obviously, the asset covered the credit, and we were servicing it, then why must we pay? And the threat was that 'if you do not pay back, we are taking over.' That was how the receivership issue came up at that time. But we thank Almighty God, all that is history. All that is past, we planned to go to the Stock Exchange earlier on, but we had to wait. The amount of damage, dent put to the image and perception of the organisation had to be corrected over a long period of time to restore the confidence of Nigerians that it is possible, and that electronic media as complicated and difficult as it is, as a new area of economic endeavour as it was at that time, it is something that is possible to make really work, but it needs a lot of commitment, sacrifice, and a lot of pain had to be gone through to bring it to this level.

"You are all living witnesses now that by February this year, the offer for DAAR Communications actually opened and ran through from about February 26 to March 31. Well, I do not have to sing the praises of DAAR Communications to mention all the firsts and all the ground-breaking efforts that we had gone through. Those are easy to find. But significantly, we have tried to change the face of broadcasting in Nigeria. We have paid our dues, we will continue to pay our dues. We went to the Stock Exchange believing very strongly that the ordinary people of Nigeria have faith and confidence in DAAR Communications. And that the measure of our acceptance, the measure of the appreciation of Nigerians for the sacrifices that we have made on their behalf is an indication that the airwaves do not belong to us. It belongs to the Nigerian people, we are just holding it in trust for all Nigerians. We try to keep it as much as possible to say have your airwaves back, keep it yourself and so on. If you want us to continue to manage it on your behalf, we would be glad to do so, but you should be the owner. And there was quite a positive response as you have seen in the last couple of days. The offers put for subscription and for sale were 100 per cent subscribed. Really, it was about 100.2 or .3 per cent, but in order not to run in the issue of over subscription, we had to do some juggling around to really be sure that we were able to fall within the limit. There were multiple applications by individuals along the line. We tried as much as possible that these were eliminated early enough, plead with the persons that were involved.

"Also, the delay in the release of the result had to do with the performance of the issuing houses that were involved. And the deadline that the SEC had set in ensuring that every process connected with the offer was perfected.

"By and large, the result is out. Let me thank all of you most sincerely, because without the tremendous support of the entire media, both print and electronic, I do not think that we would have had the possibility to have gone as far as we were able to go. I am using this forum to thank all of you who, through your various columns and write-up encouraged and inspired Nigerians to participate. And to thank Nigerians at large for the confidence they have reposed, the sacrifices they have made in investing and placing hope in DAAR Communications.

"Let me reiterate also that the offer proceeds will be applied very strictly and prudently. One to the national networking expansion programme that we are embarking upon, both for radio and TV for which Mr. president graciously granted approval for the second national network in Nigeria to DAAR Communications earlier in the year -January 4, 2008.

"We are also going to be coming up with multi-channel, pay-TV platform which we hope will be taking off from Abuja. We are also looking at totally transforming and upgrading the facilities in each of the stations across the country from analogue television broadcasting to full digital TV platform. Not only in term of the studio facilities - cameras, switches, but in actual fact, the whole entirety of broadcasting for all our stations across the country. We also look at the issue of building a film village in Lagos to enhance our capacity to undertake some productions, not only movies for sale to other people, but also for our own television consumption. We are looking at TV consuming content and enhancing, uplifting the standards for us to come at par with modern day television broadcasting in any part of the world. Especially, next year will be the Nigeria's 50th anniversary of coming of television to Nigeria. We are looking forward very strong to bring Nigeria's glory in broadcasting back to its proper place. Nigeria, in the continent of Africa, started TV broadcasting in October 1959, but today, we have to depend on South Africa and other African countries for modern day television broadcasting. We want to play our small role in ensuring that Nigeria's honour and glory are fully returned and also re-establish the leadership role we ought to be playing in TV broadcasting in the continent.

"This is, more or less the objective of this meeting. We have not received the offer proceeds yet, but you are invited to see efforts we have put on ground on our own, so that when the offer proceeds come in, it can only go further in enhancing and consolidating our giant strides. It was an offer at give away price, but we will see how it goes.

"For the multi-channel project, we are looking at starting test-transmission on August 1, 2008, and the official take-off on September 1. The equipment for that is already on ground. Some of the facilities are at testing point, while installation is still on going. But the good point is that every item that is required is already on the ground. We are starting with 40 channels. It is going to be transmission on High Definition. It is quite challenging. We are launching broadcasting at a different pedestal. I was glad to host, last week, somebody from CNBC Africa, and he was flexing muscle to say that 'Oh, I have the best latest broadcasting equipment in the whole of Africa.' By the time I took him round a little bit, he bowed and said he could accept that this one is much more superior, this is much stronger. But I had to give it to him that he started first.

"Apart from the newsroom that we are building, other facility is on ground. We are pursuing vigorously all the things that I said in the documentary. We have been on course and pushing it all along.

On manpower to run the new vision

"You are right that we need to get more hands. We need to train. We need to expose our people to new technology. But new technology is not about increasing manpower. It is the direct opposite. There is going to be a lot of reduction of manpower. But the casualty will not be too high, because we are building 20 other stations. We are expanding from our current levels of 8 stations to 24, so, about 16 new stations will be coming up between now and October. The transmitters both for radio and TV are on ground. The buildings are coming up right now in the various locations across the country, as they finish, the equipment will start going and people will be redeployed to various other areas. The truth of the matter is that the younger ones have to be given more opportunities. There is the problem of transition from the old way of doing things to modern way. And it is easier to bend a fish that is fresh than the one that is dried already. It is the younger ones that we will be placing more emphasis on. I must admit to you that after going through the facilities in Lagos, I am determined to assist the Group Managing Director, Alhaji Ladi Lawal, in retiring a number of the very senior staff in order to allow the younger ones that are still flexible, capable of meeting the challenges of their contemporaries in other part of the world be given the chance.

"For instance, in the master control room where we used to have about 12 people working, it is only one person that is required! In the programme injection room where you needed about 8 programmers, with the new technology, you only need two. And the natural human reaction is to say, 'when this thing comes in, I may likely loose my job.' So, either you stall the growth or you start destroying the equipment. That is the scenario in our Lagos office right now. Unfortunately, Abuja is 100 per cent digital; Lagos is about 60 per cent on digital platform; and there is the need to raise the level to that ,

At the first stage, my vision was to get Lagos, Abuja, and Port Harcourt to feed in on digital content. We are transmitting now to the USA, UK, Asia, far East, up to Korea, Japan, China, on WH5 and across the continent of Africa. If we were to get to that level, unfortunately, the way we do things have to change. We have to come up on the full digital platform. It is not easy to tell people that that is what is going to happen. But we have no choice. But we must have right attitude. One of the major challenges that the Nigerian broadcasting industry is going to have in transiting from the present analogue to digital would be the manpower. I think we are starting a little bit late in training and exposure of our engineers. Those of our engineers graduating from the universities, unfortunately, do not have the opportunity to get in touch with modern equipment and facilities and when they come out, they come into an environment with analogue facilities. They have not seen a proper digital environment from which they can gain proper experience. We do have facilities to set some aside as laboratories where students can acquire basic knowledge and experience.

In our own little way, we are surmounting this. I have some expatriates over there, in order to let our staff learn on the job, especially the younger ones that are flexible and versatile with computers.

On training and re-training:

"But as far as training is concerned, all facets, sub-divisions in the broadcast chain would need complete training. What we have done is to have a versatile reporter for instance. A camera man should be able to handle audio, video, lighting. He has to be one man in all. The days are gone when the duty of a cameraman is to carry the camera; somebody else would be carrying the light; another adjusting the audio, one person would have to do all these at the same time. The issue now is to build video journalist - a reporter who is able to handle the camera, come back to his office, write and edit the story, pass it to his editor, later to the graphics people and finally for transmission. The orientation has just got to change. The focus therefore has to be on the younger ones and invest on them in training at both local institutions and abroad. From October, we will be sending about 25 people to UK for training for a period of about 4 to 6 weeks."

Long term plans

"The long-term measure as regards training is to collaborate with the training institutions we have here in Nigeria. They are two - TV College in Jos and FRCN Training school in Lagos. It's easier and better for us to strengthen what we have than every individual wanting to start something new every time. At the two centres, there are buildings and lecturers. They may not have been exposed to all this level of sophistication, we can bring in people from time to time to assist in the training. The structures are already there, even if we have to donate some equipment, it is better and easier to take up from that ground than to starting a new school on your own. The days of one man, one organisation have come and gone. It is highly capital intensive.

The pay-TV project

We are going to be looking at the entertainment sector. We are bringing in a number of channels that have to do with movies from Hollywood, Bollywood, and Nollywood. In UK, AIT Moviestar is already making waves. Ecostars in the US, we are having discussion to have both AIT general entertainment channel and Moviestar bundled together for the American audience. We are looking at kids, so we are bringing in the strongest, all the 32 channels that are foreign to make up the 40 channels pay-TV platform are the highly rated channels that are available across the world. For news, we have quite a number of channels that are coming in. There is also a lot of sports. We have been acquiring a lot of the sporting rights. Though, I have to dough my hat for our friend at HiTV who has done tremendously well in acquiring right, but I have a different approach and view about that. We also have documentaries. In the nearest future, we want to build up documentaries on West Africa history.

About the eight channels, from DAAR Communications, we have AIT News, which is a 24-hour news channel with correspondents in South Africa, Kenya, Egypt, Ghana, Senegal, together with US Bureau and UK Bureau. Then the general entertainment channel; and Musical Channel to be co-ordinated by Adepetu. We are thinking of bringing in the Gateway TV to the platform. I do not have any objection to even have NTA on the platform. It is just a matter of Africanising and bringing in to our people those things that are indigenous to us, thereby supporting their growth.

"In addition, there is going to be children channel. We have about 12,000 hours of children programmes that we have acquired, total library that we have taken on. From last quarter of October when all our network stations would have been on stream, the whole face of AIT would totally transform. Whether we will be able to have sufficient advertising support is what I have left to the financial people to look at. But for me, the entire dream of transforming and strengthening and upgrading the face of television would have been substantially achieved.

"There is going to be Sahara 1 for the Indian loving people; from the US, Fox Sky is coming in as well as detective stories, This is the rationale behind some of the structures we are putting up here in Abuja as the headquarters of DAAR Communications."

That was annoyingly long

You could 've summarized your points there.


i support your works on Hitv but please stop the NIGERIAN factor stuff - put your money where your mouth is!

mustay, wat da hell is ur problem man, i asked 4 info on dat nut u, so why criticise someone who is being quite useful, i blive dat u feel u gat an axe 2 grind wit hitv but i would prefer u direct ur anger to d appropriate quaters. urfriend tanx 4 d info man, it was truly refreshing, kip up d gud work man

hey senga, acn i know more about you cos you kinda sound interestin?

You seem not to know your problem - how did mustay disturb your interaction with senga huh?

Hey! Mustay and Delv, pls you know we are all mature fellows on this thread, no punches please.

One Love!

Hitv suckzzz!

DSTV all the way u can subscribe as ur pocket reach, ranging from 2500, 4300, 9000. i enjoy the music, Mnet series etc, and i got espn for sport

yo mustay, i aint got no prob wit you man, but i find it annoying dat u use everi damned little opportunity you get to belittle urfriend, aw wud u feel bein the object of constan ridicule man,ilugun boy, could you please xplain dat little logic to mustay, cant belive he found it hard to understand

who's belittling urfriend

So may peeps on Nland like not long stories.

Thank Goodness urfriend is reasonable enough.

Please stop diverting from the topic to treat personal issues

mustay my person,

pleasee! no more personal words. We 've been good to one another thus far, let's continue with that approach.

Hi delvinmaya

I am based in Europe but often in Nigeria and know the choice we have in Europe and there is no reason why Nigeria should not have the same choice.
Mark my words there will be big changes next year once Eutelsat position their new satellite over Nigeria and it will be to the good of Nigerians.

hey,can you tell me the benefits nigerians will b getting from this venture?

delvinmaya:

hey,can you tell me the benefits nigerians will b getting from this venture?

huh?

hi all,this is to confirm what i say b4 now[more than 2months now].it was published today on thisday and guardian newspapers.

HiTV gets new subscriber management system

Entertainment Highway Limited (EHL) the parent company of HiTV Limited, Nigeria's first indigenous digital Pay TV operator has sealed a partnership deal with MQSubscribe(tm); a Convergent Customer Management & Billing (CMB) solution from MagnaQuest, for its Direct to Home (DTH) Operations spread across Nigeria. The deal was signed in Hyderabad, India.

The acquisition of the new subscriber management system will eliminate the cumbersome procedure where it was hitherto difficult to connect subscribers upon payment of subscription fees. The new process would ensure smooth and seamless administration of subscribers' accounts. This development is in line with EHL's resolve to continue to address the concerns of its teeming subscribers.

Mr. Rajiv Debbad, VP, Sales and Marketing, MagnaQuest Technologies said the signing of the deal has opened a new business chapter between Nigeria and India. ''We are delighted to have Entertainment Highway Limited on our list of customers from the African region. We are confident of leveraging our extensive local knowledge and domain expertise gained from similar DTH implementations worldwide to provide EHL a truly world-class solution.''

In his response, Mr. Toyin Subair, CEO, EHL and Managing Director of HiTV said the company is poised to provide broad based entertainment package to Nigerians and promised that the company will not relent in its determination to continuously update its facilities to meet international standards.

''As part of our commitment to providing leading-edge services to our customers in Nigeria, we chose MQSubscribe to manage our Subscriber Management, Billing, Dealer Entity Management, CRM and Logistics aspects of our business. We look forward to a long association with MagnaQuest.'' Subair added.

Entertainment Highway Limited is a multi-channel digital satellite TV service in Nigeria, launched in 2007. The company has been granted a national satellite broadcasting license in Nigeria.

urfriend
how about terendtv
i went to their website and i was amazed, i couldnt even enter any link, it was crap.
can some one tell me anything about thier services.

vowiski:

urfriend
how about terendtv
i went to their website and i was amazed, i couldnt even enter any link, it was crap.
can some one tell me anything about their services.

Exactly.

And they started about 7 years before hitv.

And where is DAAR this was to be the first day of testing and we still don't know about their 40 channels! Where is their marketing?

hi all hitv just added sony entertainment television. on 12130 h 27500

dovevision has start full transmission on hitv.they shall air live the RCCG holy ghost congress live from this morning.

urfriend:

hi all hitv just added sony entertainment television. on 12130 h 27500

man. thats cool, i love that channel.
hope it goes well

cool station SONY is

for more info on sony go to www.settv.co.za

.

vowiski:

urfriend
how about terendtv
i went to their website and i was amazed, i couldnt even enter any link, it was crap.
can some one tell me anything about their services.

trend is just a piece of shit.
trend is HISTORY!

hi all,

please find below hitv fixtures for this weekend.

UEFA CUP

thursday aug 28 7:00pm Beşiktaş JK (TUR) vs NK Široki Brijeg (BIH) hi soccer

thursday aug 28 5:00pm Hapoel Tel-Aviv FC (ISR) vs FK Vojvodina (SRB) hi soccer

CAF CHAMPIONS LEAGUE

sunday aug 31 2:00pm tp mezembe vs enyimba hi sports

sunday aug 31 4:30pm asec vs zamalek hi sports 2

SERIE A

saturday aug 30 5:00pm udinese vs palermo hi sports 2

saturday aug 30 7:30pm sampdoria vs inter hi SPORTS 2

sunday aug 31 2:00pm atalanta vs sienna hi sports 2

PREMIERSHIP

saturday aug 30 3:00pm west ham united vs blacburn rovers hi soccer

saturday aug 30 3:00pm middlesbrough vs stoke city hi sports

saturday aug 30 3:00pm bolton vs west bromwich albion hi sports 2

saturday aug 30 5:10pm hull city vs wigan athletic hi sports delayed

saturday aug 30 5:30pm arsenal vs newcastle united hi soccer

sunday aug 31 4:00pm sunderland vs manchester city hi sports delayed

sunday aug 31 4:00pm aston villa vs liverpool hi soccer

man united match has been moved due to uefa super cup.

will soon post the one for la liga,

has there been any chelsea match on hitv dis season ?

@urfriend
Hello , been following yr participatin/contribution to this thread , Very usefull/helpful.!
Quick question , i deactivated sometime in June 07 cos i moved house , and would now like to reactivate.
Can you help out?
My smart card number is 01710001113-3, will appreciate it.

Thanks

@ urfriend
oopps, you can reach me on my mail gboyesh5000@yahoo.com,
Expectin yr reply!!



<shakes head as he leaves thread, "will i ever get a reply, hmnnnnn">