Uganda Government to switch off television services

KAMPALA-  As part of preparations to migrate from analogue to digital broadcasting, Uganda Broadcasting Corporation (UBC) has announced a three days switch off of the free-to-air television services.

Starting  tomorrow,  64 broadcasting stations including televisions and some FM radio stations renting from the Kololo Summit View mast and operating on a terrestrial television free to air platform will be off air.

In a new release yesterday, Ms Rose Namayanja, the information and national guidance minister, said government would stick to the three days to mitigate impact of the process.

“UBC has put in place a contingency arrangement to ensure uninterrupted provision of television and radio services beyond the greater Kampala areas in Uganda,” she said.

She said television services on the satellite platform would not be interrupted during the period of installation of digital terrestrial television antennas.

The digital migration exercise is a fulfilment of a July 2006 International Telecommunication Union (ITU) resolution (to which Uganda is signatory) and requires all countries to have shifted all their television broadcasting signals from Analogue to Digital by June 2015.

Further to this, in Uganda, the policy on Analogue to Digital migration was approved by Cabinet in April 2011, providing for UBC as the sole signal distributor for at least five years.

It is also captured in the National Development Plan (NDP), 2010-2014 as a key infrastructural development project essential for social, economic and political transformation of Uganda.