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Digital television broadcasting means consumers are gaining control in choosing when, what, and how they watch television programmes in this ever-increasing multichannel environment (McDowell & Walter, 2000). According to Sutherland and Sylvester (2000), there are two separate processes at work when a consumer is making a decision on the type of programme to watch: (a) the generation of alternatives and (b) the evaluation of the alternatives. By chance, in an attempt to select a programme among alternative programmes available, a viewer may come across an appealing programme. By choice, a viewer decides which programme to watch. In the current digital age, it is the quality of content that is appropriate to target consumers that counts and not the quantity.
Literature has also identified the adoption of digital television broadcasting as an opportunity for innovation and creativity. On the one hand, the push for attention compels industrial players, particularly content producers and broadcasting companies, to conform to standards (Berman, Battino, Shipnuck, & Neus, 2007; Teixeira, 2014). On the other and, however, this technological innovation is a great threat due to the abundance of choices being provided on media outlets available. Aside from these numerous choices, content emanating from the West tends to dominate the mediascape, which is “the images of the world created by these media” (Appadurai, 1996, p. 35). The result is that consumers are further fragmented. This causes identity confusion as the influx of foreign content programmes further reduces local content, a thing which is already a problem for stakeholders as the balance between content heavily weighted towards foreign rather than local content on the platform (Ballantyne, 2002; Corwin, 2000; Stern, 1999). The challenge for stakeholders, particularly in Africa, is how to preserve the local cultural values from being adulterated by the influx of foreign programmes, since the adoption of the digital television broadcasting across the world would eventually lead to the proliferation of all television channels on all local peoples. A recent survey on TV viewership puts The Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC), which was established to be an epitome of Ghana’s cultural reflexivity, at the fifth position, with an average daily viewership of 275,000 (Elliot, 2018). It behoves GBC to adopt innovations that will help attract viewers and help in maintaining the ideological and cultural brand values of the Ghanaian. This will mean getting viewers’ attention by creating a brand that aligns with viewers culture and identity.