PEOPLES DAILY, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2013
PAGE 12
EDIT ORIAL EDITORIAL
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AFCON blackout: Beyond the bluff of LC2
ince the commencement of the Africa Cup of Nations tournament in 1957 and subsequent partnership with the broadcast media in particular, the 29th edition is the first that the terrestrial television and radio stations in Nigeria are denied access to live broadcasts. Even in the 1996 and 2012 editions that Nigeria did not participate in, Nigerians watched and listened to live broadcast of the matches. However, this year, the Broadcasting Organisation of Nigeria (BON) has had to impose a blackout on the ongoing continental fiesta in South Africa no thanks to what its Chairman Mallam Abubakar Jijiwa terms as an "outrageous fee demanded by the organisers of the competition." BON explains that the rights holders had demanded six million Euros (about N1. 24b) as a precondition for Nigerian broadcast stations to beam the matches to Nigerian homes. It rightly observed that no station will be able to break even giving the limited time to canvass for patronage and the forbidden cost of the broadcast rights. Talks over downward review of the fee to 3million Euros broke down when the rights holders refused to budge, instead they directed BON to ask the Federal Government of Nigeria to make up the balance. Even
after BON sought and secured a further 1m Euros from government and offered to up the fee to 4.5million Euros, LC2 Media-AFNEX stood its ground. Sad and painful as its decision may be, BON says calling the bluff of the AFCON broadcast rights holders- LC2 Media-AFNEX- was done in good faith and to protect the integrity of the country. The case of Nigeria is
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We, therefore, are one with BON in opposing what amounts to an attempted daylight rip-off of Nigeria inexplicably different from that of South Africa, the host of the tournament. The latter was asked to pay $2m, Angola and Togo $300,000 each. Nigeria's fee amounted to more than a half of what the entire continent had had to pay. To be sure, the confusion over broadcast rights is not for want of efforts to secure a reasonable fee for Nigeria. They had been on-going since last November when BON first contacted CAF over terrestrial stations' rights to broadcast the matches live. The two parties couldn't find a common
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ground because "from eight million Euros, they (the LC 2) came to six million, then 4.5 million Euros," said Jijiwa, who went on to describe the process as "not scientific charge" but " a kind of casino pricing". According to him, BON decided to end the negotiation, hoping that "maybe next time the Confederation of African Football will be more sensitive when it comes to hiring of agents to vend the broadcasting rights of the African Nations Cup." Peoples Daily recalls that even before now Nigerians had been denied the privilege of watching AFCON and CAF Champions League and Confederation qualifiers each time those matches were played outside our shores for the simple reason that the same rights holders imposed outrageous fees on local terrestrial stations. We, therefore, are one with BON in opposing what amounts to an attempted daylight rip-off of Nigeria. If Nigeria last year paid $2.2m for live broadcast of matches of the 2012 tournament jointly hosted by Gabon and Equatorial Guinea for which we did not quality, why is it so markedly different this year? Is it because, this time our Super Eagles are participating? We also laud the passionate soccerloving Nigerians for understanding BON's action and the government for once refusing to play irresponsible Father Christmas.
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