Media owners in Lusaka have petitioned the Independent Broadcasting Authority – IBA over Topstar for what they have termed as ‘unfair treatment’ from the signal carrier.
Speaking during a meeting with the Independent Broadcasting Authority-IBA and Topstar, Media Owners Association of Zambia chairman Gerald Shawa said it is sad that Topstar has continued to disregard the contract terms with media owners by switching off the channels with impunity.
He said a number of TV stations have been switched off from the Topstar decoder without consulting IBA which is Zambia’s only regulator. Shawa questioned were Topstar gets its powers to the extent of disregarding the authority of IBA.
But IBA Director General Josephine Mapoma said Topstar has no power to switch off any channel without the authorization from IBA. She said Topstar is just a signal carrier who should work in consultation with IBA which is the Licensing authority.
And Topstar Technical Director John said the black out of some stations on its bouquet was as a result of technical issues with some TV stations. He said, in some cases, some TV stations have absolete machinery and were failing to send the signal to their servers. He also explained that some channels were dropped because the satellite service provider has reduced their bundle.
Meanwhile, Shawa who is also Prime TV owner said the revenue sharing model implementation with Topstar has been pending for sometime. Shawa added that the proposed carriage fees imposed on TV stations is not sustainable. He said that Topstar is paying for foreign content but imposes carriage fees on local content, this is all at the expense of local content.
But, Topstar vice president Cliff Sichone explained that the issue of carriage fees is determined by ZICTA and will continue to engage media owners on the issue of revenue sharing. ZICTA is yet to confirm on this matter.
However, in an exclusive interview with Zambian Business Times – ZBT, Revelation TV owner, Stanford Chifita advised Topstar to respect local content service providers, saying once they pull off, the whole digital migration process will be a white elephant.
TBN owner Dr. Dan Pule said Topstar should respect all the license provisions while his CBC counterpart Pastor Jerome Chiluba urged Topstar not to fight local content providers but instead embrace and partner with them.
The Zambian government has pledged to implement local content laws and regulation but seem not sure on just how to go about this. However, a check across frontier African countries such as Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa show that these nations have moved at a much faster rate than Zambia.
