By Reporter
To relax the lockdown or to extend it? These were the questions on the majority of Ugandans’ minds as they awaited President Museveni’s speech. Uganda had so far been on lockdown for two weeks and the signs were showing that the lockdown would be extended – which indeed was.
Prior to the speech, something happened. There was a total power blackout throughout the entire country. UMEME explained that this was due to a floating island that had messed up the turbines at Nalubaale Power station (former Owen falls dam).
Ugandans then resorted to live streaming the presidential address on social media and other platforms and that’s where, in the words of a one Isaac Ruta, “the debate of NBS TV Vs NTV was settled.”
Just to put this into context, Uganda has a population of 45.1 million people. Of these, 60% have access to mobile phones, 24% are internet users and 5.6% are active on social media. Of those active social media users, Facebook is the most used with 2.3 million users per month according to Hootsuite’s Digital Report for Uganda.
Just before power was turned back on, NBS TV peaked at 13,600 active live viewers while NTV peaked at 7,100 active live viewers – that’s about half of what NBS TV got.
The comments section on Facebook was also another area with funny statements. The number of screenshots about funny comments that went around was predominantly from NBS TV’s Facebook live stream, another testament that people prefer watching NBS.
On Twitter, one Geno Eric commented: “The online views between NBS and NTV show how much you people love NBS but just pretend here.”
Immediately the Presidential Address was done, NBS TV went live at Owen Falls dam to speak to the minister of Energy on what exactly caused a national blackout.
The online prowess of NBS is a product of their powerful picture and display quality, interior studio design, news relay techniques, and presenters dressing is in harmony with the environment. This doesn’t take away the relevance of NTV, but the numbers speak for themselves.
The post Power Blackout sees TV stations take the battle to online space: NBS TV comes clear appeared first on BigEye.UG.
