The National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) has sanctioned 45 broadcasting stations which allegedly breached its code in the second quarter of 2019, including stations fined for misleading adverts.
NBC Director General, Mallam Ishaq Kawu, made this known while addressing a news conference recently in Abuja. According to the NBC boss, the use of unsubstantiated and misleading claims by advertisers, especially trado-medic advertisers, also dropped significantly from the last quarter. Meanwhile, a total of 30 stations were fined for infractions related to same.
He said the contraventions included breaches of the rules on hate speech, abusive and inflammatory broadcast.
Kawu stressed that the Commission’s Second Quarter Monitoring of Broadcast Stations Profile was from April to June 2019.
“Coming shortly after the national and state elections in the first quarter of the year, the report indicates that there is a drop in breaches related to hateful, abusive and inflammatory broadcast, which peaked during the elections.
“Thus as many as 45 stations were fined; the second quarter indicates that the trend has continued among certain stations, especially in political programmes.
“Therefore 20 stations were fined in the 2nd Quarter, for breaching provisions of the Nigeria Broadcasting Code on hate speech.
“Other breaches were in the area of obscene and vulgar lyrics- a total of 10 stations were fined for infractions related to use of vulgar lyrics and obscene content.
“It is worth mentioning that the program Big Brother Naija was cautioned against unwholesome content on its broadcast,” Kawu said.
He added that ten broadcast stations were fined for breaches related to station announcers turning themselves to advertisers, hypers and promoters of product.
