Which are the best-known Ivorian digital terrestrial television channels?
What are the intentions of agencies and advertisers regarding the use of these new channels? Will they use them? Do they already have a preference for one channel or another?
How will they finance their campaigns on these channels? By increasing their advertising budget? By reducing the amount spent on RTI? Or by reducing the budget allocated to other media?
All these questions are answered in the ADWESEARCH TNT 2019 study, which was conducted in December 2018.
But before analyzing the responses to this questionnaire, let's take a look at the different stages of the emergence of DTT in Ivory Coast.
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1. Overview of DTT in Côte d'Ivoire
1.1. Key dates concerning the technology
The first key stage for DTT in Côte d'Ivoire was the launch of three calls for tenders at the end of 2016:
- the first for the implementation of technical infrastructure,
- the second for the broadcasting of free channels
- and the third for the broadcasting of pay-TV packages.
The third call for tenders was quickly finalized: Startimes and the CANAL Group were each awarded a complete multiplex and the right to broadcast up to 20 channels in SD or 7 channels in HD.
However, the first call for tenders proved unsuccessful and the launch of the technical infrastructure was delayed by more than a year. A company, Ivoirienne de Télédiffusion (IDT), was created with the main tasks of operating and maintaining the network and broadcasting infrastructure.
January 2019: The Minister of Communication, Mr. Sidi TOURE, announced at the press New Year's ceremony that "DTT will become operational" on February 8 in the city of Abidjan and will gradually be extended to other regions of Côte d'Ivoire.
The switch-off of analog broadcasting was announced for June 2020.
1.2. Key dates for the channels
The four companies selected in January 2017 initially sought investors. After a few twists and turns, TF1 finally announced its decision not to invest in any of the new channels at this stage, and M6 decided to take a 30% stake in Life TV, the channel allocated to the VOODOO group.
Due to delays in the technical process and uncertainties about the delivery date of the infrastructure, the channels slowed down their process of recruiting teams and acquiring programs.
In October 2018, despite uncertainties about the completion date of the infrastructure work, the HACA confirmed that broadcasting would be in MPEG-4 format and drew lots to determine the order in which the channels would appear on DTT televisions.
DTT channel numbering
On January 15, 2019, A+ Ivoire, one of the four new private DTT channels, began broadcasting, initially on the CANAL satellite.
Will there be a single launch date for the other DTT channels?
Or will there be a common date?
When will the decoders be available and at what price?
When will the awareness campaign for Ivorians take place, without which DTT cannot succeed?
The answers to these many questions are still pending, meaning that the first channels to actually occupy the DTT frequencies will only be able to do so at the end of the first half of 2019 at the earliest.
Spontaneous awareness of DTT
73% of those surveyed spontaneously mention Life TV and 67% mention the CANAL+ group channel.
The latter appears under various names: A+ Ivoire, A+, CANAL+ IVOIRE, Ivoire +, CANAL, or even Easy TV, which is the name of the CANAL offering on pay-TV DTT in Congo and the DRC.
Next comes 7 Info (also known as TV7, which was its code name when the channels were allocated, or simply 7) with 47% spontaneous awareness, while NCI and RTI3 are known by one-third of respondents.