George Sembony, The Citizen Reporter
Tanga. When a renowned Tanzanian Film Star, Steven Kanumba appeared on the podium of the week-long Tanga Film Festival as a guest of the StarTimes, at Tangamano grounds, in the Tanga City last week, the casual observer could perhaps dismiss this gesture as a public relations gimmick by the company.

But it was not. StarTimes, international Chinese Company that has partnered with the Tanzania Broadcasting Corporation (TBC) to form Star Media Company to execute the national programme to switch from analogue to digital broadcasting and the event is one of the promotion events that are aimed at speeding the switch towards digital broadcasting.

StarTimes is one sponsors of the Film Festival organised by the Tanga Film Association and has conducted several promotion campaigns in Tanga and Tanzania in general to encourage people to change to digital broadcasting.

Speaking on the importance of promotion campaigns, the Chief Executive Officer of the Tanga StarTimes office, Mr. Hans Han said that such promotions have been useful in increasing the number of subscribers to the company therefore a moving force towards the switch to digital television.

For Tanga, StarTimes has so far been able to attract almost 4,000 customers who are now in the digital link and according to Hans promotions have played an important role as one of the major ways being used by the company to support and speed up the switch from analogue to digital broadcasting Tanzania.

The company, according to Hans has created several promotions from becoming one of the sponsors of the Miss Tanga Beauty Contest, this year including the recent Film Festival organized by the Tanga Film Association which coincided with a visit by a popular Film artist, Steven Kanumba “the Great” as the first StarTimes ambassador to mobilize and reach more people to switch to the digital broadcasting services.

The event and the promotion have set in motion a quest to put the region in the map for the national move to switch from analogue to digital broadcasting which has been set to be complete at the end of 2012 for East African Community States.

Digital switchover simply means changing from analog signal to digital. Currently, free-to-air television signals are broadcast in both analog and digital formats but during the digital switchover, all free-to-air analog television signals would progressively be turned off and replaced with digital-only television signals.

According to experts digital data takes up less bandwidth, meaning more channels can be broadcast at the same time, which gives viewers more choice in what they watch and allows for follow up channels which broadcast the same programmes as their namesake, just an hour later.

For a country whose population is not endowed with the wide use of the internet such kind of promotion is inadequate and the fact that for the common Tanzanian it might not be easy to explain all the nitty gritty details about the benefits of the digital systems something extra is surely needed.

However it could be advisable to take up advise from the former Tanga Regional Commissioner, retired Major General Said Kalembo who called for caution over the change of the transmission system from analogue to digital which provides a choice of wide range of Television channels saying, “such a change should not be an excuse for encroachment upon the country’s national ethics and culture.”

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