.MALAMA

By CLEVER ZULU –

GOVERNMENT has said there will be no television blackout as a result of the digital migration scheduled to take effect this June.
Information and Broadcasting Services Permanent Secretary Godfrey Malama said people should not believe stories from other quarters of  society that there will be a television blackout after the June 15, deadline of digital migration has passed.
“I want to assure the public that there will be no blackout for television viewers in the country because the exercise is simply the migration from analogue to digital,” he said.
The permanent secretary said the Government was scheduled to meet the Southern Africa Community Development (SADC) deadline along the line of rail.
Mr Malama, however, said the rural areas and other towns would not meet the deadline but that analogue television would be available until such a time that it was replaced by the digital one.
Mr Malama was speaking at Kenneth Kaunda International Airport (KKIA) in Lusaka yesterday when he inspected the first batch of equipment to be used for the phase one implementation of the digital migration exercise.
The equipment received are generators, tower, a transmitter, outdoor shelter, satellite antenna, feeder cable and a solar power system procured at a cost of US$ 9.5 million.
Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC) director general Richards Mwanza said it would be irresponsible for ZNBC to abruptly switch off the analogue transmission signals.
“We cannot be irresponsible and switch off the signal, we will run the transmission for both digital and analogue concurrently,” he said.(see picture on page 3)