Digital TV : CRTV learns best practices in China

Actors involved in switching over television broadcast in Cameroon from analogue to digital have learned best practices in China which should obviously give a plus to the process already begun in the country. CRTV’s General Manager, Amadou Vamoulke, the Inspector General, Felix Zogo and Theophane Didier Kaba Aliguen, Technical Division Director, all of the Ministry of Communication have rounded off, alongside other experts, a three-day 3rd Forum on China-Africa Media Cooperation that held in Beijing, China from June 21-23, 2016.

The forum that brought together over 350 media executives and other stakeholders from over 45 countries had as theme, “Win-win Cooperation through Common Development” with one of the talking points being, “Digitilisation and development of new media.” In a chat with Cameroon Tribune, Amadou Vamoulke said all the hitherto unanswered questions about digitilisation in Cameroon have been cleared with the technological choice, means of financing and training of human resources already handled. There was therefore need to see what others are doing.

“We came to find out if there was something new and to interact with others to find out what is happening in other countries,” he said. He disclosed that CRTV had gone into partnership with China’s digital television broadcast giant, StarTimes, which was co-incidentally one of the co-organisers of the Beijing conclave. “StarTimes has proposed to rehabilitate CRTV and at the same time move into the digitilisation proper. This entails that everything (building and equipment) will be renewed. We have already started digital broadcasting in Yaounde and Douala and very soon we will go to Bamenda and Garoua and we hope that by the end of the year 50 per cent of the territory would have been covered,” Mr. Vamoulke added.

The Beijing media conclave coming after the 2015 Johannesburg China-Africa Forum, organisers said, was an ideal moment to seek ways of federating efforts in educating and sensitizing the population and governments for an optimal attainment of the 60 billion dollar ten cooperation agreements reached in South Africa to give Sino-African ties fresh impetus. Some participating countries signed 15 agreements or Memorandums of Understanding with Chinese firms to modernise media practice in their countries and to better inform and educate the population for the mutual benefits of China and Africa.