By Chris Onuoha
The Executive Council of the Association of Electronic Media Content Owners of Nigeria, EMCOAN, has directed that all its members should boycott defaulting media Agencies until further notice.

This directive is part of actions being taken by the Association recently to get the Media Agencies to pay up the huge debt being owed its members and to begin to project electronic media content owners as vital partners without which Agencies cannot successfully run their operations and therefore should accord them due regard.

For sometime now, the Association has complained about the manner in which media agencies treat independent producers, especially regarding payment, alleging that the affected Media agencies default on the agreement signed by both parties, completely oblivious of the harsh terrain where producers go through thick and thin to produce programmes and battle TV stations to ensure transmission so that advert placements run at all cost. She mentioned that some of her members are owed millions of Naira for several years and it would not be on her watch that such would go unaddressed.

According to the President, Mrs. Debbie Odutayo, apart from delayed and irregular payments, these Agencies demand a ridiculous unjustifiable 25% volume discount even when the contract being issued cannot be said to be in any volume. She also claimed that in some cases, some of these media Agencies take more, even up to 40%, thereby stifling members to run at a huge loss.

On what would be the next line of action, the President asserted that the Association would not hesitate to publish names of these media agencies should they refuse to do due diligence within the specified time.

She however assured that the overall interest of her members is her most paramount call and would do all in her power to ensure that their interest is protected.