Rejuvenated DaarSat, the satellite television of Daar Communications Limited, says Main One will carry traffic through its fibre optic network.
Managing Director of the company, Dr. Don Pedro Obasaki, confirmed the partnership between the two companies in an interview with our correspondent.
Obaseki said it was important for the company to carry traffic via satellite and optic fibre, emphasising the need to provide alternative routes in digital satellite broadcasting.
He said local content and moral emphasis were very important offering for the Pay TV service provider which first inaugurated its service in 2008 before it was forced out of business about a year later.
According to him, the company has invested heavily in repackaging the vernacular channels of the satellite broadcast television, adding that the channels have not just been created to stream home videos.
He said, “The Igbos have been busy telling Igbo stories in English language. Igbo films are even hardly available. But we have invested heavily in creating Igbo programmes.”
Obasaki said kiddies channels have also been created, adding that the company has the capacity to offer 250 channels.
He said that apart from programming, the company was going to offer the best pricing in pay television, adding that all legitimate avenues were going to be used to woo back old subscribers and prospect for new ones.
The Daarsat boss had at a press conference in Abuja disclosed that the Federal Government had signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Daar Communications Limited to address mass failure in secondary school examinations through quality educational broadcasting.
He regretted that Nigerian children were no longer doing well in competitive examinations such as the Unified Tertiary Metrication Examination and West African School Certificate Examination and pledged that the educational broadcasting would address the problem.
Obasaki also disclosed that the company was working in collaboration with Teachers Media International, a United Kingdom outfit, on the provision of content.
The involvement of the Federal Government in the project will enable the media conglomerate access some funding from international donor agencies and also bring on board agencies such as the National Education Research Development Council.
Obasaki said about 19,000 lessons ranging from primary to secondary school lessons using Nigerian teachers based on Nigerian curriculum were being prepared.
On the rejuvenation of the satellite broadcasting service, Obasaki said the company has invested heavily to ensure that the satellite services do not fail again as was the case in 2009, barely a year after it began operations.
He said, “The emotional capital we have invested in DaarSat is even much more than financial capital that we have invested in it. The story of our coming backing is more profound than the story of going down.
“It is true that we went down. That is in the public domain. We went down but today we are up again. We are the only pay TV that went down and came up again. If AIT and Ray Power cannot go down, DaarSat cannot go down again.”