National Association of Broadcasters Secretary General Joseph Beyanga before the Committee on ICT at Parliament on November 2, 2023. PHOTO/DAVID LUBOWA
Media operators under the National Broadcasters Association (NAB) have advised local artistes to focus on producing quality content if they want to dominate airplay on Uganda’s airwaves.
The suggestion was made before the parliamentary Committee on Information, Communication, and Technology (ICT) yesterday as the NAB leadership made its input into the call to have reviews made to the amendment of the Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Act, 2006.
In his submission, the NAB secretary general, Mr Joseph Beyanga, dismissed allegations by a section of local artistes who claimed their content was denied airplay.
“We need to make sure our artistes are putting out quality content that is competitive and can shut out foreign content which they are complaining about,” Mr Beyanga said.
He advised local artistes to out-compete their foreign counterparts.
“We are picking foreign content because our audience prefers that content. If we are serving people, we have to serve them what they like. We are not putting out rubbish for the sake of meeting the quota and then we end up losing audiences,” Mr Beyanga said.
He added: “Media is about a business we are running and we have to make sure we get the highest number of listeners and viewers.”
The representative of online media at the NAB, Mr Andrew Irumba, re-echoed the view, saying most of the locally produced content is profane and therefore can’t get be given deserving airplay.
Read more: https://www.monitor.co.ug/uganda/news/national/focus-on-quality-content-to-get-airplay-broadcasters-tell-artistes-4422306
