Equipping State owned Broadcast media in Nigeria towards meeting Digitization deadline.

Writer: Olayinka Alaya Topic: Equipping State owned Broadcast media in Nigeria towards meeting Digitization deadline. The term broadcasting refers to the totality of the communication and technological process that allows for the transmission of audio-visual signals to a large, heterogeneous mass of people, simultaneously. As of today, and strictly speaking, only radio and television, meet the requirement of this definition. The inclusion of Radio and Television media under the generic term mass media is justified because of their ability to reach large parts of the population. According to scholars in mass communication, mass media are those means of communication that use technology to reach large parts of the population almost simultaneously with the kinds of news and entertainment that ordinary people find attractive and at a price that ordinary people can afford to pay. The merging of social, economic and technology inventiveness that characterized the nineteenth century greatly pushed broadcasting to a place of strategic importance in world affairs. Today, radio and television technology is one of the significant human ingenuities ever evolved in solving human communication problems. In Nigeria today, since the advent of redifusion in 1963, an arrangement between the colonial government where programmes originating from the British Broadcasting Corporation in London were transmitted to Nigerians, Radio has been playing pivotal roles towards the independence of the country and sustainability of the country's democracy. It is very devastating that however after the roles played by the broadcast media towards the growth of the nation, many state owned media outfits had been suffering due to lack of government's commitment and neglect. Many of these state owned media outfits are crying of lack of maintenance and equipment to meet international standard. Even their workers are also affected despite the fact that they work round the clock without observing public holidays or festivities, they are also poorly paid. Some stations had become moribund while majority of them only improvise. Their working tools and equipment have become obsolete and out fashioned begging for replacement for it to meet up with the broadcast digitalization deadline date. Therefore, it is pertinent to appeal to all the thirty six state governors to as a matter of urgency pump money into their electronic media to enable them meet up with the deadline set for their digitization for them to compete favourably with their counterparts all over the world. Nigerian governments should rise up to the challenges of the twenty first century by making extra efforts in investing in radio and space research. Harassment of media practitioners by law enforcement agents, politicians or anybody should be stopped and there should be strict penalties for anybody whatsoever who obstructs journalists from carrying out their primary responsibilities. The Nigeria Union of Journalists should also wake up to its responsibilities by ensuring that all state broadcast media don't suffer government's neglect and protect the right of their members from any form of violation. It is only when Nigerian journalists are given the enablement to operate Independently without any influence from governments or owners of media organisations that Nigeria can be free from corruption and crimes. The Freedom of Information Act should be a reality for journalists to unravel what is being covered up and allow Nigerians to have undiluted information. While delivering the one hundred and twenty ninth inaugural lecture of the university of Ilorin on ' the mandate : Radio as an instrument of Dominion', Professor of Physics, Professor Isaac Abiodun Adimula, said there should be adequate funding and maintenance of Nigeria mass media and development in information communication technology if there should be accelerated match towards growth and development. Therefore, government at all levels should wake up to their responsibilities by ensuring that the media sector does not suffer from government's neglect any longer.