CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background Of The Study
The word “television” is derived from mixed Latin and Greek word meaning “far sight”. It is a widely used telecommunication used for transmitting and receiving images, either monochromatic (black and white) or colored, usually accompanied by sound.
According to (Ogbuoshi, 2005), “Television is an electronic system that is used to convert moving images and sound into electric signal, which are then transmitted by radio waves or by cable to a distance that convert the signal back to images and sound”. He also defined television “as a system for transmitting moving pictures of a scene over long distances by radio and reproduced on receiving instruments”. When news or any speech is made the person reading or making the speech can be seen over the television screen. A television camera changes the area of light and shade in a picture into electric currents of different strengths. The currents are transmitted by the radio and they are picked up by a receiver.
The receiver changes them back into the areas of light shade, which appears as a picture
on the screen of a television set. The television has the ability to communicate simultaneously through sounds and pictures. It shows immediately realities of what is happening at the time it is happening and this makes it the darling of the household members and hastens the learning process if effectively used. (Antonoff, Michael 2009), defines television “as a system of sending receiving pictures and sounds by means of electronic signals transmitted through wires and optical fibers or by electromagnetic radiation.
History of Television in Nigeria
Nigeria entered the world of television broadcasting in 1939, when its Western region adopted television broadcasting. This was one hundred years after the first print medium appeared in the soil of what is now known as Nigeria. As the history of radio broadcasting in Nigeria, television has a political undertone. The Macpherson constitution of 1951 contained some flaws, one of those notable flaw was the absence of a responsible government at the centre e.g. the ministers were not given portfolios and neither was there a leader of government business. Again, the existence of regional ethnic politics weakened the central legislature e.g. the representatives at the centre were to their regions.
Moreover, the constitution still provided for an all-powerful governor with veto power and power to legislate on any matter in the country. All these anomalies attracted the attention of other national leaders who rose up in unison to condemn the provision of the constitution. Outstanding among the politicians was Chief ObafemiAwolowo who described the constitution as a “ram shackled and a retrogressive movement to an independent nation”. The then British governor went to NBS (Nigeria Broadcasting Service) to make a broadcast in defense of the constitution.
During the broadcast he accused Chief ObafemiAwolowo as being unfaithful, Awolowo then demanded equal time from the NBS to offer a rebuttal of what the governor general said. The NBS denied him the request. This led to the agitation, not only for the incorporation of the NBS as public property, but also for eventual establishment of separate individual regional broadcasting system independent of federal government
control. A member of the Action Group (AG) in the parliament moved the motion to make the NBS a statutory corporation.
As a way of venting his own spleen to the colonial administration, the leader of the Action Group (AG) and premier of the Western region, Chief ObafemiAwolowo, set up his own broadcasting system in 1959. Thus, on October 31, 1959, the first television station not only in Nigeria, but also in the centre of Africa, started in Ibadan. It was commissioned in as radio-vision by the Western region government ostensibly for easy administrative co-ordination. At first in 1959, the Nigeria Broadcasting Service was in view of a constitutional change, and was upgraded to a corporation by the Western government. The constitution had by this time permitted regional government to set up their own broadcasting services.
Swinging into action, the western region went into partnership with a foreign based firm called Overseas Redifussion. This was preceded in 1959 by a specifically designed corporate name of a Western Nigerian Government Broadcast Corporation (WNBC), which it gave to the up starting radio station, this foreign firm in 1959, therefore assisted government in taking a step further to establish a television station. Hitherto, it had been a radio station all through. Red Infusion Ltd in conjunction with the regional government then set up the Western Nigeria Radio Vision Services Ltd, to facilitate the commencement of television broadcasting.