#Oborevwori One Year in Office: Delta State Broadcasting Service in Coma (Editorial)

Editorial

The Delta State Broadcasting Service, Warri , is a State Government owned broadcasting station. The station over the years has not received the needed government funding and attention, apart from Ibori’s administration. Looking at the speedy advancement of state owned broadcasting stations in the country especially, Lagos, Abia, Rivers, Imo, Bayelsa and other states, Delta State Broadcasting Service, Warri is living in a past glory. One of the purposes of the state owned broadcasting station is to stand as a medium of sharing information, especially communicating the government policies and programmes to its citizens.

Obviously, that purpose has been defeated. The Delta State Broadcasting Service especially, the Warri station, lacks all basic modern facilities and amenities. No proper water system, no good toilet, the studio is nothing to talk about, desks and tables dilapidated, the building needs refurbishing, and equipment such as Camera, computers and others are old or outdated and needed replacement, this include retraining of staff to meet the current standard of information management.

The other challenges are power supply and poor transmission. Power is a life wire of every business or establishment to function properly. The station is banking on power plant to generate electricity. The power plant owned by the broadcasting station is weak and could not guaranteed effective power supply, most times during news hours, the power plant will tripped off or breakdown, causing unhealthy break in transmission. The station as well can’t bank on national grid for power supply following its epileptic nature.

Again, the station is transmitting through Startime, imagine, how many homes are still using Startime decorder in their houses. The least decoder people are talking about is now Gotv but DBS is still celebrating Startime because of lack of government support. This singular reason has made the government owned broadcasting station to loose patronage and retarded in growth and advancement.

This has made people instead of turning to the DBS for local services, now turn to the likes of TVC, Arise News, Channel, AIT and others for information and coverage of their events and functions.

The State government who supposed to give its station maximum patronage is now looking elsewhere for media coverage. The government paid heavily to patronise outside media, money spent often time on outside media could be enough to refurbish and upgrade the state broadcasting service to a dependable standard.

The governor who is a Warri home- boy is expected to prioritise and upgrade Delta State Broadcasting Service, Warri and that of Asaba to enable the state broadcasting houses compete with others outside.

The More agenda, the Delta State Broadcasting Service, Warri should not be left out, what is good for the goose should also be good for the gamder. The various media appointees, including the commissioner for information should wake up from their slumber to face their responsibilities. As the governor failed to visit the Delta State Broadcasting Service, Warri since one year in office, the commissioner for information and various media appointees non have equally visited the epileptic and almost collapsing broadcasting house. This is a great disservice to the state and its people.

Uptill this disappointing end, the locals still rely on the state broadcasting station for news and dissemination of information and other local services.

This is a clarion call on the governor, Rt. Hon. Elder Sheriff Oborevwori to fix and upgrade the state broadcasting houses to enable it serve its purpose of establishment.

Editorial

Congress Newspaper