edition-dw-akademie-in-the-service-of-the-public-functions-and-transformation-of-media-in-developing-countries-pdf

Part III Nigeria: Freedom Radio, an African Private Public Service Radioalso possible to buy airtime. All program slots except for newsand current affairs slots are ‘for sale,’ which generally meansthat they are open to sponsorship. Sponsored programs carryannouncements or advertisements of the sponsors. News relatedprograms are not open to sponsorships, this, of course, inorder to “maintain the station’s editorial controls and ensureindependence to broadcast news without undue interference.” 65Freedom Radio’s news output is mainly fed by the agencies,first and foremost by NAN (News Agency Nigeria) which, asmentioned previously, is state-run and has a legally protectedmonopoly in Nigeria. Access to other sources is not prohibitedor monitored, so that the newsrooms also use internationalagencies (Associated Press and Agence France Presse were specificallymentioned here 66 ), and cable networks such as CNN,AlJazeera, and BBC World are fed into the newsrooms. Thereis a small staff of reporters available for local news and events,but the station cannot afford a large enough pool of reportersto enable them to cover a wider region. Apart from Kano,they have reporters in Kaduna State and in the capital, Abuja.A Freedom Radio/Bayero University audience survey conductedin Kano in 2011 put the news and current affairs programmingvery near the top of the popularity list out of over 100programs a week. 67 The general perception is that the stationmade its name in news and political programming. 68There are four main news slots a day, at 9 a.m. (Monday toFriday as part of a ‘live interactive talk show’ 8:30–10 a.m.), at12:00 (News at Noon, seven days a week), a brief bulletin at 4p.m. (as part of the Evening Show) and at 7 p.m.. Most bulletinsare 15–20 minutes, the 7 p.m. slot is half an hour of GlobalNews and Reports followed by half an hour of Mu Leka MuGano, with “news of the day, with reports from all parts of thestate” 69 (vice versa in Kaduna and Dutse Stations), seven daysa week. There are several other slots – such as Kowanne Gauta,which features comments on daily politics “from a cross sectionof the public” 70 – reserved for magazine-style news and politics.The newsroom is headed by a Manager as the overall supervisor.He is assisted by a Head of News Desk, who holdsdaily editorial meetings to review the previous bulletins andchart the course of the day. The newsroom operates a two-shiftsystem, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and 5 p.m. to midnight. Each regionalstation has its own newsroom and operates independently,though they share important stories.Perception, Participation and Public EngagementConducting the interviews in preparation for this report, it wasnoted that every interviewee, at some point early on in the interview,said that Freedom Radio asked the people what theywanted from the outlet, what programs they wanted to hear,what kind of content they hoped for. One of the first programsto be taken up – by public request – was a program about peopleliving with HIV/Aids. Freedom Radio was the first station todo this and the program has now been running for ten years,every Thursday, inviting sufferers, their doctors, and medicalexperts into the studio to report on their experiences and an-swer questions from listeners. 71 The managing director statesthat the funding for the program is generated entirely by thestation itself, since no sponsor wants to be associated with thesubject, and that offers to farm the program out to other networkshave so far elicited no take-ups.The ratings as established by mediaReach have been citedand are confirmation of another statement made by everyinterviewee: namely, that Freedom Radio is the most popularand widely-used radio station in the local area and the widerregion. 72 Programming is interactive to an unusual degree,continually encouraging the audience to participate, not leastby inviting members of the public directly into the studios.The phone-in format is widely used. As at least one intervieweepointed out, this means that audiences are being educated;people are learning that radio provides a forum, where theiropinions are just as valid as anyone else’s. 73Through Freedom Radio a culture of debate is beingformed – we look more particularly at this below (10.6.1 Creatinga Public Sphere). This was not an overnight process andFreedom Radio occasionally made itself the target of publicire because of something that guests on the air said. Onat least one occasion, as most interviewees mentioned, anarmed crowd gathered at the gates of the station, and in 2006,the station buildings were badly damaged as the result of afire-bomb attack. 7453Umar Saidu Tudunwada, GeneralManager Operations,Freedom Radio.54Faruk Dalhatu, Managing DirectorFreedom Radio,Board of Directors.55Umar Saidu Tudunwada,General Manager Operations,Freedom Radio.56Dr. Balarabe Maikaba,Head of Mass CommunicationsDept., Bayero University, Kano.57The Chairman of the EditorialBoard is a journalist of somestanding and the only personthus far in Nigerian media historyto have headed both state television(NTA) and state radio (FRCN).58Umar Saidu Tudunwada, GeneralManager Operations,Freedom Radio.59Faruk Dalhatu, Managing DirectorFreedom Radio, Boardof Directors.60Ibid.61Umar Saidu Tudunwada,General Manager Operations,Freedom Radio.62Faruk Dalhatu, Managing DirectorFreedom Radio,Board of Directors.63mediaReach OMD 2011, 32.64Umar Saidu Tudunwada,General Manager Operations,Freedom Radio.65Ibid. – information providedvia email on June 21, 2014.66Faruk Dalhatu, ManagingDirector Freedom Radio,Board of Directors.67Ibid.68Dr. Balarabe Maikaba, Headof Mass CommunicationsDept., Bayero University, Kano.69See Freedom Radio homepage.70Ibid.71Faruk Dalhatu, ManagingDirector Freedom Radio,Board of Directors72mediaReach OMD 2011, 32.73Prof. Dr. Abdallah Uba Adamu,Dept. of Mass Communications,Bayero University Kano.74Faruk Dalhatu, ManagingDirector Freedom Radio,Board of Directors.Edition DW Akademie In the Service of the Public 191