Policy and Research

DIRECTORATE OF BROADCAST POLICY AND RESEARCH (DBP&R)

What it is, what it does and its relationship with other Directorates and Departments of the Commission

DBP&R is one of the Directorates of the Commission created by the Reform and Implementation Committee (RIC) in 2008. It was primarily created to assist the Director-General to carry out the responsibility assigned to the Commission by Section 2(1) of National Broadcasting Commission Act Cap NII; Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004.

The Directorate of Broadcast Policy and Research is responsible for National Spread of Broadcasting, Universal Access, Research, Information and Publications of the Commission’s findings, policies and regulations, and International Relations (Content) including relating with International organizations;

1. Generating and developing broadcast policies and regulations and facilitating their implementation in accordance with global best practices i.e developing policy framework for digital switch over, community broadcasting and public service broadcasting.

 

2. Producing topical and relevant policy memorandum for consideration at National Council for Information; National Council for Communication and National Council for Budget and planning.

 

3. Coordinating review of Nigeria Broadcast Code, Annual Report of the Commission and year planner.

 

4. Planning, initiating, coordinating, monitoring, implementing, evaluating and publishing research on the broadcast industry.

 

5. Promoting authenticated audience measurement and penetration i.e through stations and programmes rating and accessing similar research work done on the broadcast industry.

 

6. Undertaking research and development in new and emerging areas of broadcasting like the Digital switch over, over the top broadcasting.

 

7. Securing research materials and providing comparative analysis of emerging broadcast trends, policies, regulations and best of global practices.

 

8. Coordinating all research and publication activities of the National Broadcasting Commission.

 

9. Collating reports and documentation of projects conferences, Seminars, symposia, workshops etc of the Commission.

 

10. Collation of data on the Commission and the broadcast industry in

        Nigeria and making it available to the public as directed.

11. Sourcing for viable broadcast research projects.

 

• Coordinating the Mass Communication curricula for tertiary institutions and partaking in the accreditation of broadcast programmes in tertiary institutions in the country.

 

• Maintaining a library and data bank for the Commission.

 

• Collating and analyzing monitoring reports from the zones so as to serve as input for the review of broadcast rules and regulations i.e code review.

 

• Initialization broadcast policies for the Commission.

 

• Stations’ Audit: This entails a thorough evaluation of all operational aspects of broadcast stations

Key assignments carried out by the directorate

NBC, at the inception of Deregulation of Broadcasting in Nigeria, carried out a baseline study of the industry, titled “Media Research and Preferences” It laid a proper foundation on which broadcasting in the deregulation era thrived.

Before the commencement of digitization, the BP&R also coordinated the audit of existing broadcast stations, which involved a detailed documentation of analogue stations within the NBC Zones, except Jos, Kaduna, Maiduguri and Sokoto zones (due to Boko Haram insurgency that pervaded the Northern Nigeria at the period of the exercise).

The Directorate is responsible for many of the Commission’s publications such as the Nigeria Broadcasting Code, NBC Annual Reports, and Africa Broadcast Journal.

The Directorate has also in the recent times carried out Surveys/Studies bothering on different aspects of the industry and the Commission. For example,

• Programmes and Stations’ Rating,
• Assessment of the publics awareness of the Commission and its functions;
• Opinion poll of media coverage of 2011 and 2015 General Elections,
• Baseline studies on deregulation, etc

The results of these efforts, amongst others have helped the Commission to formulate a more comprehensive policy for election coverage in the future.  

The Directorate was initially in charge of Africast and proceedings of Africast were usually published.

The BP&R Directorate was also involved in the draft of a Broadcast Policy for the nation.

The BP&R Directorate represents the DG at meetings in Federal Ministry of Information (FMI) and makes valuable contributions on policy issues.

The BP&R Directorate often carries out research into broadcasting in other climes before every new addition/input into the Nigeria Broadcasting Code, to undermine its suitability within the media context in the country.

BP&R Directorate relates with international organizations and has secured training opportunities for staff of various directorates in the past.

The Directorate made a major contribution into the digitization policy e.g the decision to manufacture Set Top Boxes in Nigeria and the use of dangle or software to collect information and audience measurement, a major requirement of the NBC Act, were policies derived from studies of other climes carried out by the BP&R Directorate.

Findings from the Baseline studies on digitization also assisted the Commission in planning for the transition from analogue to digital broadcasting by determining how and where sensitization/enlightenment about digitization is most needed in preparing the country for the switch over project.

The studies were geared towards knowing the awareness level of the audience, level of preparedness of broadcast stations and also to assist the Commission in detecting grey areas that needed to be addressed in preparation for the switch on in other states of the federation, amongst other reasons.

Review of the Nigeria Broadcasting Code- 5^th Edition. The Directorate also anchored the “call for Inputs” into the Review of the 5^th Edition of the Nigeria Broadcasting Code, collation and harmonization of inputs from stakeholders into the review of the National Broadcasting Code.

Collation of workshop reports, seminars/conferences, organize by the Commission. These reports are to be printed into booklets for reference purposes.

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