IPOB interview: Channels TV has apologised for breaching broadcast code, says NBC

The National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) says Channels Television has apologised for allegedly breaching the country’s broadcast code.

On Monday, the commission directed the suspension of Politics Today, a programme on the station, after a leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) was interviewed.

The NBC directive drew criticisms from many Nigerians.

While clarifying the directive, Franca Aiyetan, NBC director of public affairs, said the letter the commission sent to the TV station was an “instrument to check its excesses”.

“The station has accordingly apologised,” Aiyetan said in an interview with NAN.

“It is a station that won an award, but we say in this particular situation, ‘you did not handle it professionally’. It is possible to breach the public peace and that was what the letter conveyed to Channels TV, to which the TV station has responded, saying ‘we apologise, we did wrong’.

“When the media started asking me about Channels TV, I had to go and find out what letter we had issued, because if it is a press release or something that is for public consumption, it will come to the public affairs department of NBC, and I will be able to communicate to the media about it. But this letter that went to Channels TV is our way of regulating the broadcasting industry.

“It is called a breach letter to the station to say ‘in this particular programme, you did not act professionally; you did not do it in line with the provisions of the Nigeria Broadcasting Code’.

“Like the letter sent to the station by the commission, its offence was that it interviewed someone of a proscribed organisation. The NBC now said because of that, this breach attracts a shutdown or a fine of N5 million. But the pay line was that they were advised to discontinue the programme.”