Nigeria's premier private broadcaster goes public

The only other media house to have attained this feat is the now troubled Daily Times of Nigeria Plc which was partly government owned and which in its heyday in the 1970's and 80's accounted for over 50% of newspaper audience. Most of the private media groups in Nigeria are fully privately owned.

At an investors' forum to promote the initial public offer recently in Lagos, Dr. Raymond Dopkesi, former shipping magnate turned media mogul, founder and chairman of Daar, stated that the company has resolved to use the opportunity provided by the public offer to expand the network's capacity. He said the goal was to attain the standard of international broadcast outfits such as CNN.

The plans include using funds raised from the offer to expand and digitalise the stations' operations and fund a national, sub-regional and international expansion program that will see the group opening up bureaus in South Africa, East Africa, North Africa, West Africa, Europe and Asia. AIT is already seen via satellite in the UK and US.

The network is now received in about 12 out of Nigeria's 36 states with the plan to expand into 20 more locations. This national expansion plan is being made possible by the recent granting of a network broadcast license to Daar, which before now has been prevented from a full national roll-out due to sheer monopoly of nation-wide network broadcast by government-owned Nigeria Television Authority (NTA), still the country's only real network.

Dr. Dokpesi also talked about plans to go into mobile broadcasting, construct a film village, upgrade existing facilities, and procure program content and a digital satellite system. He said, “With the network licence granted the television station, AIT will go into pay television, beginning with 40 channels – all of them originating from Nigeria. Within the next two years, we will be available on your handsets everywhere in this country”.

Under the two-in-one offer that opened on 25 February 2008, Daar Investment and Holding will offer 980 million shares of 50 kobo each at N5 per share while Daar Communications will offer 1.890 billion shares of 50 kobo each at N5 per share. The combined offer is valued at N13.5bn (about US$112.2m).

Daar Communications along with its two trail-blazing media channels has a troubled history, having been enmeshed in Nigeria's political problems. However, the network bounced back with the Nigeria's return to democracy in 1999 and the corresponding improvement in the investment climate that brought in new businesses, especially telecoms, with huge budget for advertising. AIT began to stabilise with the influx of revenue from increased ad budgets from corporations as well as live broadcast of political events and political campaign advertising.

Observers believe that it is this improved business climate and the emerging prospects that have driven the group to take the path of expansion via the stock market. Many stock analysts predict that the offer would do very well in the market as many Nigerians would be taken in by the novelty of a media house going public and by the hype the channels would generate.

However, some media experts are apprehensive about the ability and capacity of the Daar team to translate the huge funds that would be realised from this offer to a befitting media powerhouse comparable in size and efficiency to the CNN of this world. This is due mainly to the management style and over riding presence of the group's chairman, who is widely reported to run the company like a family business.