The Ghanaian government has launched a sweeping initiative to crack down on domestic television stations that illegally broadcast copyrighted Nigerian films.
The regulatory intervention, announced by the Ghana National Film Authority (NFA), aims to protect intellectual property rights and halt widespread cross-border digital piracy within the West African entertainment sector. To enforce compliance, regulators are drafting a legislative framework to temporarily revoke all existing television broadcasting licences and force stations to reapply under strict new copyright guidelines.
According to the NFA, the targeted operations are expected to be fully implemented by 2027. Under the proposed system, offending stations will face tiered penalties, beginning with heavy financial fines that will be directly redirected to compensate the affected filmmakers. Subsequent violations will trigger licence suspensions, while a third offence will lead to the permanent revocation of the station's broadcasting rights.
The announcement follows a viral confrontation between prominent Nigerian film producer Uchenna Mbunabo and James Gardiner, the Deputy Executive Secretary of the NFA. Mbunabo publicly challenged Ghanaian regulators over the unchecked distribution of Nollywood intellectual property, directly accusing television channels of ripping creative content from digital platforms.
"I noticed that Ghanaian TV stations, the way they are stealing our films and showing them for free with impunity," Mbunabo stated in the recorded discussion. "Is it legalised in your country for TV stations to go on YouTube, download people’s sweat and show it for free?"
Gardiner confirmed that the practice is entirely illegal and admitted that enforcement has historically been crippled by a lack of physical corporate footprints among digital broadcasters.
"There are copyright laws, but they are not effective because a lot of the TV stations don't have offices," Gardiner explained. "Most of them are now digital, so they operate from anywhere. They can even have a Ghanaian TV station but be operating from Austria simply because it is digital."
To close these regulatory loopholes, the NFA has initiated joint strategic meetings with the Ministry of Communications, the National Communications Authority (NCA), and the National Media Commission (NMC). This inter-agency coalition is designing the "nuclear option" of licensing resets to weed out anonymous, untraceable digital pirates who bypass local corporate registration.
High-profile Nollywood figures, including Ruth Kadiri, Omoni Oboli, Bimbo Ademoye, and Mercy Johnson, have previously issued public outcries over Ghanaian broadcasters capitalising on their films without paying licensing fees.
The illegal broadcasts directly undermine the financial viability of Nollywood projects. Piracy on free-to-air television dilutes the digital ad revenues and streaming payouts filmmakers rely on to recoup their high production budgets.