National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) yesterday urged television stations across the country to stick to the guidelines for the broadcast of Ramadan Tafsir, which, among others, ban the broadcast of live Tafsir.
The commission, has in a message signed by the management, reminded the stations of the agreed consensus that “no Tafsir shall be broadcast live.”
The message further said a religious broadcast shall not contain any material that is likely to encourage or incite the commission of a crime or lead to public disorder.
The NBC subsequently warned television stations to be responsive to the feelings of every NBC Bans Ramadan Tafsir, threatens Erring Stations.
And in a broad bid to address the general malaise in Nigeria’s broadcast landscape, Emeka Mba, NBC director general, also issued a ‘public notice’ to all broadcast stations of an: “imminent suspension and withdrawal of (their) broadcast licences if they failed to “reconcile their accounts and effect outstanding statutory payments.”
Subsequently, the Commission has issued a 21-day ultimatum which lapses on August 12, 2013 to “settle their outstanding licence fee or face appropriate sanctions in line with the provisions of section 10 (a) of the ‘Third Schedule of NBC Act Cap N11, law of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004.”
The provision of the law which the NBC hinges its sanction warning states that: ‘a licence may be revoked by the Commission in the following cases, that is (a) where the prescribed fee has not been paid on the due date;’
Several broadcast stations in Nigeria, especially publicly owned media evade payment of licence fees.
They hinge their survival on government backing, while private stations claim they don’t make enough returns to stay afloat.
Despite the claim of poor financial returns, the Nigerian airspace continues to witness an avalanche of new stations surfacing every now and then throughout the country.
Mba warns that the suspension notice affects both private and publicly owned broadcast stations.
Source: Nigeria Communication Week
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