TELEVISION VIEWING HABITS OF NIGERIAN ELITES.
A CASE STUDY OF ENUGU METROPOLIS
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
The
tendency, most of the time especially in
the developing countries, is for media practitioners to package their media
contents well. In doing this, they do
not take into consideration their supposedly diverse audience. This may be as a result of professional
ignorance or perhaps taking the audience for granted. But taking the viewer, listener or reader for
granted today is ver costly on the part of the communicator.
In same vein, may be the level of our
development still makes the media operators in each of the sectors not to care
very much about the programme requirements
of the various audience for example, the programmes contents of some of
our television stations do not take care of the heterogeneous viewing
public. This implies that each audience
has specific reason (s) for tuning into
a particular programme in fact their
media expectations seem to be diverse as their
demographic and psychographic variables.
To attain the ultimate goal of
communication which has to do with
meeting audience needs, ensuring their continuous patronage and profitability,
the satisfaction of the audience must be guaranteed through result- oriented,
popular, diverse and professional packaged programme contents. To achieve this,
the true nature eof the audience must be known.
This possible through audience segmentation- that is the dissection into
specific needs and their characteristics.
This is a must for communicators whether in advertising, public
relation, broadcasting etc it is very imperative as the availability of
information is one thing ad its effect another.
With the society becoming more complex
every day, different need are bound to exist with people from different
backgrounds- education social, culture,
economic, ethnic language political and
religious different, media needs must
prevail. No one can meet such needs through mere guesses or trial. Agee, etal (1985) put it this way
“Unsystematic, informal, intuitive method is not longer adequate for the modern
communicator for so many reason”
It is
also in the interest of media operators to consider this.
The stiff competitive environment the media are involved today means the media operators must be
professionally ethically and profitably minded.
To attain this, the practitioners must embrace audience research in
order to clearly understand the desires of the audience.
“In some studies
researchers are seeking to determine the motivations for media use in others
the goal is to determine the gratification people derive from suing the media”,
said Agee etal (1985).
Okunna
(1994 supports this :
Through use and gratification
research, communication scholars have shown that everywhere, people selectively
expose themselves to mass media
contents, choosing only these media message that would serve the functions of
satisfying or gratifying their needs”
This is the situation at a time, information
and communication have assumed new dimension in globals scheme of things. It is today almost the fourth essential need
of man, after food, shelter and
security.
Communication, whether through radio,
television, newspaper, magazine or
internet is today central to the survival of man for man’s optimal, functionality, he requires
daily dosages of information, irrespective
of his area of profession.
When man’s goals of media patronage
are met, he reciprocates, by aiding the funding of media contents through
advertisement and sponsorship. In turn
the media make profit reinvest and
thereby boost the economy. The present
poor performance of the Nigerian foundation s manifested in over – centralized
location, poor funding, inefficient personnel, besides the poor quality
programmes coming from them. This has
resulted in gross imbalance and pardon of the actual needs of the audience,
which of course is a sight.
So, what are the present situation needs of the television viewership in Enugu, efforts of the local and international
stations to meet them, and translate the
viewer desires into profit.
STATEMENT OF RESEARCH PROBLEM
Modern
communicators can no longer afford to be insensitive to the wishes of today’s
audience their successes and failures
are directly linked to their packaging of functional and result oriented programmes in tune with
the demands of the audience.
Evidences
abound to the effect that television broadcasting stations available to Enugu viewership are
insensitive to this fact. This is bound
to have impact on their viewing
habit. The stations they tune to the
programmes contents of television stations available to Enugu audience.
OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
The above
problem must be solved for improved and qualitative television programmes for
the Enugu
viewership. To this end the objective of
this study include.
1. To ascertain the
qualitativeness of the television
programmes available to Enugu
viewing Audience.
To fond out the factors which
influence their programmes selections and choice.
To know the stations and
programmes at their disposal.
To determine the inputs which
goes into those programmes packaging
To know the effects of the
choice of specific television progrmme and their over all influence in the lives of the audience .
SIGNIFICANCE
OF THE STUDY
The study is
bound to have tremendous influence on a
number of people, as well as to various spheres of lives or endeavour like
politics businesses, education, economy etc
Hence, at the
end, media practitioners, managers, policy makers, politicians,
researchers scholars and students etc.
will benefit from the study if
successfully concluded.
The dearth of
accurate information, particularly in the area of media research and audience
segmentation, makes the study more unique and if well conducted will
providential data for media planning,
execution and evaluation, vital for more
effective media performance and efficient results.
RESEARCH
QUESTIONS
How varied and result oriented
are the television stations available to the audience in Enugu?
Are the programmes of the
television stations qualitative enough to meet audience needs?
What are the factors
determining the audiences programmes choice?
How impactful are the available
programmes to the audience?
What are their chances for
improvement, if need be ?
RESEARCH
HYPOTHESES
Hi: The television stations
available to the audience are result
oriented.
Ho: The television stations available to be audience
are not result oriented.
H2: The programmes of the
television station are qualitative enough to meet their needs
Ho: The programmes of the television station are not
qualitative enough to meet their needs.
H3: The television
programmes are useful to the
viewing audience
Ho: The television programmes are not useful to
viewing audience.
DEFINITION
OF TERMS
ELITE:
Conceptual : Group in
society considered being superior, because of power, talent and privileges.
Operational: Class in
Nigerian that is Holding on to power and
controls affairs of state.
Viewing:
Conceptual : the
ability to see something or to be seen
from a particular place.
Operational: the
watching, reception, contents with a view
to enjoying, retaining and assimilating their contents.
Television:
Conceptual: A piece of electrical equipment with a glass screen, which shows
broadcast, programmes with moving
pictures and sound.
Operational: The transmission of information through
the airwaves, which involves the use of the airwaves and coveys both visual 2
and audio contents.
Audience:
Conceptual: A group of people who have gathered
together to hear or watch somebody or something.
Operational: The media
content receiver, consumer they are the television viewers.
Enugu:
Conceptual: A
very big town
Operational: The
former capital of the Eastern Region, East central state, Anambra state and now
Enugu
state. The coal city, Enugu is an administrative and educational
town, inhabiting people with diverse culture.
SCOPE
AND LIMITATION OF THE STUDY
For want of time and other
resources the scope of this study is
limited. It cannot but limit itself
to just sections of Enugu
. for this reason it centres on six chosen parts of Enugu
involving three areas of slum, rural and urban.
The result is no doubt
representative of the problem outcome of what would have been the entire
result. Therefore the result is valid
reliable enough to lend to replicable outcome elsewhere.
REFERENCE
Warren K. Agee, Philip Ault and
Edwin Emery, (1985) Pg . 363 introduction to mass communication New York, Harper and Row
publishers.
Chinyere Okunna (1994) pg .
291. Introduction to mass communication.
Enugu
ABIC Publishers
John Buttner (1989), Pg. 329
Mass communication, An introduction, New
Jersey prentice Hall.