Abstract

Privately owned broadcast media registration and operations in Nigeria is a much recent phenomenon compared to the print which dates back to more than a century earlier, and electronic broadcasting about six (1932)to three (1959) decades earlier.  While many studies have been conducted as to the development, maturity and contribution of the earlier media, not much however has been done to track and analyse the contributions of private broadcast media to program quality enhancement as well as national development in general. These newer entities came on board almost thirty years ago and raised the bar for credible performance against their counterparts owned by the government.  This work surveyed 83 employees of two privately owned radio stations operating in a highly competitive arena of Kaduna, Nigeria, for positive and negative trends. Kaduna has the second highest number of registered radio stations in the nation (26) after Lagos (39). Program quality in comparison to government owned media was rated very high by the respondents, while ownership influence and financing were the major hindrances. Data collected was analysed within the framework of developmental media theory. A major recommendation for similarly situated stations was for them to find alternative ways of fundraising to deal with both ownership influence and lack of funding. That should help place them on stronger footing in serving public interests, and competing even better with their government owned counterparts.

Key Words: Nigerian Media, Media development, Development Communication.

JCMR Journal of Communication and Media Research, Vol. 13, No. 2, October 2021, pp. 83-90

© Association of Media and Communication Researchers of Nigeria (AMCRON).

About the author

• Hadiza Wada, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mass Communication, Kaduna State University, Kaduna, Nigeria.

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Article Citation

Wada, H. (2021). An assessment of the contributions of selected privately-owned radio stations in Kaduna, Nigeria to program quality and national development. Journal of Communication and Media Research, 13 (2): 83 – 90.