Senegal to complete DTT changeover by end 2019

Excaf’s current interests include two TV stations (RDV and DTV), 16 radio stations, of which the four main ones (Dunyaa FM, Al Hamdoullilah FM, Love FM and Sokhna FM) are in Dakar.

Its involvement for the DTT transition came from deploying an MMDS network for pay TV for over 15 years. It seized the contract to roll-out DTT in Senegal on a Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) basis in 2014.

It is a 10-year contract renewable by both sides every 5 years and the contract does not start until the construction phase is complete. According to the CEO, Sidy Diagne, Excaf is under pressure from the Government to complete by the end of this year.

The contract consists of 25 transmission sites that have to be built. So far it has completed 14 sites. Five sites need completion and a further five are awaiting the Government giving them sites on which to construct them. It will also be moving its downtown transmission site from its office building to a site at the edge of the city to provide better coverage. Population coverage is now 92% by terrestrial sites and 8% through a satellite contract. Excaf is under pressure from the Government to complete by end 2019.

Excaf has projected that there are possibly 865,000 TV households and that over four years this will increase to 1 million. 500,000 set top boxes have been sold and they are still selling, even though more slowly than after the initial launch.

The box has 17 local and international free-to-air channels (including RTS 1, Walf TV, CNN, China Radio, TV5, BFM TV, France 24, DW and BBC) as well as a 65 channel pay TV bouquet from Excaf itself. It has around 50,000 pay TV subscribers according to Diagne.

Source: Balancing Act/NexTVAfrica.com.