IMPACT OF DEREGULATION OF BROADCASTING MEDIA ON THE PEOPLE OF BORIPE LOCAL GOVERNMENT

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

It was in 1992 that Nigeria witnessed the actual deregulation of broadcasting. Deregulation was realized through the promulgation of a Decree 38 on August 24, 1992, which established the National Broadcasting commission (NBC). The NBC was saddled with the onerous responsibility of granting licenses to stations, enacting rules by which stations operate and ensuring that there is conformity with such rules. Prior to broadcast deregulation, the radio and television stations operating, were public owned. However, broadcasting never seemed to be at the service of the majority, since programme offerings were largely geared toward the glorification of the ruling elite. Regrettably, the rifling elite of the time was made up mainly of military officers and their cohorts. Broadcasting could not have performed otherwise since the military ruled with decrees. A most notable feature of broadcasting at the time was the monotony of programming and lack of variety of content, which should spice up and make the broadcasting soup thick. This was in contrast to the era of the Second Republic (1979 — 1983) which witnessed a remarkable proliferation of television stations by some states not ruled by the party of the nation’s President. In the area of news especially, such states owed no allegiance to the party at the centre and so their stations presentation of news was diametrically at variance with that of the national network, the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA). At least, then, a particular news content could be consume from different perspectives.