SYNERGY IN NEWS PRODUCTION AND PRESENTATION (A STUDY OF NTA CHANNEL 12 UYO)

SYNERGY IN NEWS PRODUCTION AND PRESENTATION (A STUDY OF NTA CHANNEL 12 UYO)

CHAPTER ONE

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

• Introduction

The concept of media synergy has been around for years. Term cross-media research in the last century, the goal has always been to determine the additional impact of a combination of media forms/messages for the same brand being attended to or accepted by an individual consumer. Today, media synergy is generally acknowledged to be:

Media synergy arises when the combined effect or impact of a number of media activities is different from the sum of their individual effects on individual consumers. Thus, synergy is a phenomenon in which the whole is not always exactly equal to the sum of the parts but could be greater than or lesser than that sum.

Most media research has been focused on individual media forms, i.e. the goal was to identify the greatest number of unduplicated audience member for a specific medium such as magazine titles television shows, etc. since the advertiser used mostly mass media messages, the media goal was efficiency i.e., that to reach the largest unduplicated audience provided the optimal solution. Thus, synergy, either within or across media was an irrelevant question.

With the growth of news media forms and fragmentation of existing ones, because of technology and the internet, beginning in the middle 1990s, media planers began to seek optimal media combinations. Media synergy became a media planning priority. Initially, synergy thinking was driven by two approaches:

1. The added value of simultaneous media exposures (multiple media messages received at one point in time as a result of consumer multi-tasking) or
2. The extended impact of sequential media messages delivered by multiple media forms (audiences exposed to a sequence of advertising messages, i.e.; television advertising driving the viewer to the advertisers website or similar). Both were considered viable approaches.
   • Statement of the Problem

Media synergy focuses on the impact of sequential exposures when it comes to news delivery. The goal has always been determined to add more to news production and presentation.

Today, in considering media influence or impact the broadcast media is faced with producing news and fulfilling enough synergy in this regard. So television station like NTA adopts synergy in news production and presentation? This is the study’s focus.

1.3   Objectives of the study

The objectives of the study sought to;

1. Find out what is synergy in news production and presentation on NTA channel 12 Uyo.
2. Find out to what extent synergy is practiced on NTA channel 12.
3. Assess the relevance of synergy in news production on NTA channel 12 Uyo.
4. Suggest strategies that could beef up synergy in news production and presentation on NTA channel 12.

1.4   Research Questions

The research questions formulated are:

1. What is synergy in news production and presentation on NTA channel 12 Uyo?
2. What extent synergy is practiced on NTA channel 12?
3. Could the relevance of synergy in news production on NTA be assessed?
4. How could we suggest strategies that could beef up synergy in news production and presentation on NTA channel 12 Uyo?

1.5   Significance of the Study

The study is significant because it intends to add more to already existing knowledge. The study hopes to be useful to broadcast researchers and to the student of Mass Communication Uyo City Polytechnic.

1.6   Delimitation of the Study

The study’s scope is the Nigerian television authority (NTA) channel 12 Uyo. The area of focus is on synergy in news production and presentation.

1.7   Limitation of the Study

The researcher was constrained by a number of variable which were:

Lack of finance which hindered the movements to and fro to the research areas. Then, the death of research materials also was another hindrance.

1.8   Definition of Terms

Key terms have been defined. They are:

Synergy: Referred to a proposition underlying systems theory which maintain that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

News: