Goodluck Jonathan to Ratify Silverbird’s National Licence

The National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) has said that the Silverbird Communications' broadcast network licence was ready for ratification by the Acting President, Goodluck Jonathan.
Mr. Awwalu Salihu, head, Public Affairs Department of NBC, said that the commission had completed negotiating and signing of agreement with the preferred bidder.   
Silverbird communications, owned by Murray-Bruce family of the Niger Delta area, emerged as the preferred bidder on December 11, 2009 with the sum of N3.5 billion for Television and N1.5 billion for Radio licence respectively.
“The commission has finished negotiating with them, we have signed the agreement with them and so, it’s now ready for the Acting President to ratify.
“Particularly, it is a broadcast Network Licence; so the Acting President has to sign it, once he signs it, they intend to go into full operation immediately”, he said.
Salihu, who said that Silverbird Communications was the first real private broadcast network in Nigeria, added “that is why the commission had to go through rigorous bidding process to ensure credibility''.
It would be recalled that interested bidders purchased 17 bid forms from the commission at the beginning of the sale of forms on September 7, 2009.
He said the commission expected the introduction of private networks in the country to inject fresh capital into the broadcast industry for wider impact on the society, creating new jobs and providing wider variety of programmes for the people.
Silverbird Communications emerged as preferred bidders on December, 2009, in the licensing process for one commercial radio and one commercial television network license in Nigeria.
In a bidding process initiated by the National Broadcasting Commission in September 2009, Silverbird Communications out-bid two other contenders in what the participants roundly described as a transparent process.
The other bidders who had earlier succeeded in scaling the technical bid along with Silverbird Communications were Daar Communications Plc, who were gunning for both radio and television networks, and Megalectrics, who were contending for a radio network license.