Advanced Television

Ghana police raid Angel TV over piracy

August 19, 2016

By Chris Forrester

Ghana’s special police unit, the Communications Fraud Unit, has raided the studios of Angel TV, and accused the station of signal theft of Multichoice’s Supersports channel.

Angel TV is alleged to have used signals showing the July Euro 2016 football championships and the current Rio Olympics without authorisation.

Multichoice Ghana in a statement said that similar instances of content abuse “have led to loss of revenue to the audio visual creative industry and the many TV stations who have continuously invested in their people and content, and loss of tax revenue to the government from the illegal activities of these TV stations”.

The police seized equipment at Angel TV. Multichoice and Supersport are the exclusive rights holder of Euro 2016 matches, as well as the EPL and other key sports events.

Not helping Angel’s case is that ahead of the Euro 2016 games it widely publicised that it would be showing the matches.

On August 11th Ghana Broadcasting Corp (GBC) also said it would be suing local TV broadcasters which were illegally showing Rio events without authorisation. “GBC wishes to inform the public that the corporation is the Official and exclusive owners of the Broadcast Rights for transmitting the Rio Olympics. GBC advises unauthorised Television and Radio Stations including Angel TV which are illegally airing the Games that it is a Criminal Offence. GBC is serving notice that civil action would be taken against offending stations.”

Categories: Articles, Piracy