Digital Switch-Over Policy Impact in Contemporary Media Industry: A Critical Review

Abstract

Nigeria’s Digital Switch-Over (DSO) policy, contrived under the International Telecommunication Union’s GE06 Agreement of 2006 and ratified in the 2012 White Paper, has spent two decades pulsating between technological promise and implementation paralysis. This article offers a critical review of the policthey’s effects on three interlocking domains of the mass communication environment, the creative industry, advertising sector, and the financial gatekeepers who control access to broadcast infrastructure. Adopting a qualitative, document-based critical policy analysis grounded in political economy of media and gatekeeping theory, the study draws on regulatory dispatchers, industry association statements, and concurrent reporting on the 2026 “Big Picture” relaunch and the June 17, 2026 national launch. Findings indicate that while the policy holds genuine potential to expand distribution channels, formalise audience measurement, and unlock a projected ₦605.2 billion advertising market, its benefits are structurally mediated by a narrow group of signal distributors, set-top-box manufacturers, and satellite infrastructure operators whose financial interests increasingly shape policy direction. The review further identifies a governance conflict arising from the broadcast regulator’s double as both rule-maker and platform curator, alongside affordability risks tied to a satellite-dependent access model. The article concludes that without deliberate structural checks, the DSO risks reproducing the very gatekeeping imbalances digitisation which is meant to be dismantled, and offers policy recommendations for a more equitable transition.

Keywords: Digital Switch-Over; broadcast policy; creative industry; advertising; financial gatekeepers; political economy of media; Nigeria