On Monday, 7 September 2026, Hon. Samuel Nartey George, Minister for Communication, Digital Technology and Innovations, announced the outcome of a comprehensive review of Ghana’s National Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) platform. The review, completed in July, recommended a sustainable cost‑sharing framework and a graduated tariff‑support mechanism to complement a subsidised national tariff of $7,000 per channel per month during the initial implementation years, with the new arrangements taking effect from January 2027.
George clarified that the $7,000 figure is not a flat fee. The tariff is phased in over four years, beginning at sixty per cent of the full amount, and is subsidised during the first years of implementation. The committee’s recommendation also stipulates that broadcasters will not pay in dollars, as the dollar is only a reference currency in the report.
The decision follows a long history of Ghana’s digital migration. In 2005 the National Communications Authority (NCA) formed a task force that included the Ghana Independent Broadcasters Association (GIBA). Ghana signed the Geneva 2006 Agreement and committed to migrating from analogue to digital by 17 June 2015. In 2010 the National Digital Broadcasting Migration Technical Committee, chaired by the Minister of Communications, produced a roadmap that established a unified national platform to carry all authorised free‑to‑air stations, ensuring universal access and efficient spectrum use.
In 2015 K‑Net Ghana Limited won the tender to build the platform, which went live in 2016. The 2016 roadmap allowed analogue broadcasters to run digital channels on the national platform alongside their analogue services until Analogue Switch‑Off. The Ministry agreed to bear the cost of the digital platform and studio‑to‑transmitter link equipment for the seventeen analogue broadcasters until Switch‑Off.
However, on 17 February 2020 the Ministry announced that the moratorium on transmission costs would end on 1 May 2020. By 23 September 2020, the Minister instructed K‑Net to collect contribution link service fees directly from broadcasters, and by 19 November 2020 the Ministry reiterated that the operator could cease providing service to any unpaid broadcaster.
Broadcasters argued that a public fee on a monopoly national platform could not be created by a letter and that authorisations from the NCA already obliged them to deliver signals to the Kanda headend. The dispute also involved rising channel fees, with the Ministry describing them as subsidised during a 29 July 2022 meeting.
Moving forward, the new tariff framework will ease the financial burden on qualifying broadcasters while safeguarding the public’s right to information and the government’s universal access obligations. Broadcasters are advised to review the phased tariff schedule and plan their budgets accordingly.
