It's not my habit nor my desire to engage in controversy. As a matter of fact, I avoid arguments as much as I can.
However, this is one issue I have the desire to offer some explanations to the best of my understanding in order to make some people understand the relationship between some broadcast stations such as Arewa24 and the National Broadcasting Commission, NBC.
NBC is Nigeria's regulatory authority that grants broadcast licenses to radio and television stations and exercises control over them. These are called terrestrial broadcast stations. There are some satellite broadcast stations that also require licenses from NBC to operate.
However, what many people don't know or don't understand is that there are some broadcast stations that do not require a broadcast license from NBC to broadcast into Nigeria's air space. These are stations that broadcast via satellite. I want to explain in a layman's language in order not to further confuse people.
Arewa24 is a TV station based in Kano and it transmits from another country into Nigeria via satellite on a free-to-air platform. On that account, it does not require a license from NBC to broadcast since it does not transmit from Nigeria; it only broadcasts its signals into Nigeria from another country. What it has in Kano is a studio where it packages its programs and sends them to another country from where it transmits.
But where the relationship between NBC and Arewa24 comes into play is when it struck a deal with a Direct-to-Home (DTH) satellite station like StarTimes (lisenced by NBC) to broadcast its signals into Nigeria. To strike the deal, Arewa24 had to acquire a special broadcast licence from NBC called a Digital Satellite Broadcast (DSB) licence and then hook up with StarTimes upon agreement between the two and approval by NBC to be in StarTimes' bouquet.
So, on the one hand, NBC can exercise a little control over Arewa24 through StarTimes. And on the other, NBC has no control over the programs Arewa24 transmits on the free-to-air platform.
This, sums up the relationship between NBC and Arewa24.
On the controversy that arose when Kano State Government, through its censors board, banned Arewa24 from airing two of its popular programs, I can't really say whether it has that power as I don't know their laws. But I'm not sure it's quite correct, either, to say that only NBC has the power to ban Arewa24 from airing the programs. Only lawyers and the courts can determine that. Besides, even NBC can only exercise a little control over the station, and even then, by extension.