The Structure and Content of Locally- Produced Children’s Television Programmes in Nigeria

Abstract

This study examined the structure and content of locally-produced

children’s television programmes with a view to finding out the quality and

appropriateness of the media content that children are exposed to in

Nigeria. It also investigated the factors affecting the quality of locallyproduced

television programmes targeted at the child audience. Data were

obtained through content analysis and in-depth interviews. Three locallyproduced

children’s programmes (‘Children’s Funtime’ – BCOS-TV,

‘Children’s Funspace’ – Galaxy TV, ‘Kids and Food’ – NTA Network all

in Ibadan, Nigeria) were selected for the study. Eighteen episodes of the

selected programmes were content analyzed while twelve purposively

selected broadcasters were interviewed. Findings showed that though the

entertainment-education content of the programmes were geared towards

meeting the socialisation needs of the child audience, some programmes

lacked professional packaging as evident in poor post-production such as

missing inter-segmental links, substitution of closing montages with

captions as well as poor and unstable timing. Factors which determine the

quality of media content revealed in the study include media funding,

competence of producers and level of participation of children. The study,

therefore, recommended adequate funding of children’s television

productions as well as training and re-training of broadcasters to ensure

quality programmes production.