The Nigerian telecommunications companies have paid over N9 billion to different Nigerian music artistes as royalty on ring back tones alone.
This was revealed yesterday evening by the Director of Public Affairs, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Tony Ojobo, at the fourth edition of the Nigerian Entertainment Conference held in Victoria Usland Lagos.
In fact, Ojobo said that this was a figure captured from payments made by MTN and Globacom alone while Airtel and Etisalat were paying huge sums in like manner too.
He was using the statistics to buttress his conviction that technology and entertainment, which have a huge link between them, were the hope of Nigeria’s future as oil revenue continues to dwindle.
Ojobo said the telecommunications sector’s liberalization, which happened in 2001 spurred massive development both in the telecom and entertainment industries.