All About Nta

CHAPTER TWO

AN INTRODUCTION TO NIGERIAN TELEVISION AUTHORITY (NTA)

The Nigerian Television Authority - also known as NTA - was inaugurated in 1977 and is the government-owned body in charge of television broadcasting in the country. The NTA claims to run the biggest television network in Africa with stations in several parts of Nigeria. Formerly known as Nigerian Television (NTV), the network began with a takeover of regional television stations in 1976 by the then Nigerian military authorities, and is widely viewed as the authentic voice of the Nigerian government.

All existing state Television stations were thereby taken over and incorporated in NTA. The Authority was organized on the six zones structure such that each zone consist of 3 stations except for one which is made of four stations. The production Centres exist in each state to contribute programmes to the zonal output. When all the installations, have been completed, it should be possible for anyone in Nigeria to receive any of the six zonal programmes by choice. In 1977, when the NTA was inaugurated, there were 7 stations with 3 in their final stages of commissioning whilst the other states had none at all.

By December 1979, there were scheduled Television broadcasts from every state capital in the country.

ORGANISATION

The Decree establishing the NTA provides for one National Board and six Zonal Boards. The National Board has overall responsibility for policy and standards and remains the corporate legal entity. With the Director-General as Chief Executive he is assisted at HQ by departmental Directors of Engineering, News, Finance, Programmes, Legal and Manpower Resources.

The Chairman of each Zonal Board is a member of the Central Board and the chief executive to the Zonal Board is the Zonal Managing Director. The zonal management consists essentially of specialist advisers to the Zonal Managing Director namely the Secretary to the Board, Programmes coordinator, Chief Engineer and Chief...