The organizers of Big Brother Naija has been warned by The National Broadcasting Commission over ‘unwholesome’ contents that breaches its code .
Mallam Ishaq Kawu, the NBC Director General, said that over 45 broadcasting stations were fined during the second quarter of 2019 for breaching their rules of broadcast. this statement was made during a press conference in Abuja.
Kawu also said most of the TV stations were fined between April to June 2019 over their political programmes. The offences include,breaching broadcasting code on hate speech, use of vulgar lyrics and obscene content.
Kawu criticized African Independent Television (AIT) for not adhering to the Nigeria Broadcasting Code.
The code that was breach stated : Section 1.16.1(f): The law of contempt, relating to matter pending before law court’s, and Section 5.1.12: News and current affairs programme shall be guided by the ethical standards of journalism.
According to Today,ng, In the area of unverified claims, the Ibadan Zone recorded the highest.
On fines meted out to the errant stations, Abuja Zone recorded the highest with 47.17 per cent, Ibadan Zone came second with 15.09 per cent and Benin came third with 13.22 per cent while the lowest was Enugu Zone with 1.89 per cent.
Forty-five stations were fined in the first quarter of the year for similar offences.
Kawu said :
“Coming shortly after the National and State Elections in the first quarter of the year, the report indicates that though there is a drop in breaches related to hateful, abusive and inflammatory broadcast, which peaked during the elections, and for which as many as 45 stations were fined, the second quarter indicates that the trend has continued among certain stations, especially in political programmes.
“Therefore, 20 stations were fined in the second quarter for breaching provisions of the Nigeria Broadcasting Code on hate speech.
“Other breaches were in the area of Obscene and Vulgar Lyrics – 10 stations were fined for infractions related to use of vulgar lyrics and obscene content. It is worth mentioning that the programme, Big Brother Naija (BBN4) was cautioned against unwholesome content on its broadcast.
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“Use of unsubstantiated and misleading claims by advertisers, especially trado-medic advertising, also dropped significantly from the last quarter, but a total of 30 stations were fined for infractions related to same.
“Ten broadcast stations were fined for breaches related to station announcers turning themselves into advertisers, hypers and promoters of products.”