TELEVISION VIEWING HABITS OF NIGERIAN ELITES. A CASE STUDY OF ENUGU METROPOLIS

INTRODUCTION 
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY  The tendency, most of the time especially  in the developing countries, is for media practitioners to package their media contents well.  In doing this, they do not take into consideration their supposedly diverse audience.  This may be as a result of professional ignorance or perhaps taking the audience for granted.  But taking the viewer, listener or reader for granted today is ver costly on the part of the communicator. In same vein, may be the level of our development still makes the media operators in each of the sectors not to care very much about the programme requirements  of the various audience for example, the programmes contents of some of our television stations do not take care of the heterogeneous viewing public.  This implies that each audience has specific reason  (s) for tuning into a particular programme in fact   their media expectations seem to be diverse as their   demographic and psychographic variables. To attain the ultimate goal of communication which  has to do with meeting audience needs, ensuring their continuous patronage and profitability, the satisfaction of the audience must be guaranteed through result- oriented, popular, diverse and professional packaged programme contents. To achieve this, the true nature eof the audience must be known.  This possible through audience segmentation- that is the dissection into specific needs and their characteristics.  This is a must for communicators whether in advertising, public relation, broadcasting etc it is very imperative as the availability of information is one thing ad its effect another.  With the society becoming more complex every day, different need are bound to exist with people from different backgrounds- education  social, culture, economic, ethnic language  political and religious different,   media needs must prevail. No one can meet such needs through mere guesses or trial.  Agee, etal (1985) put it this way “Unsystematic, informal, intuitive method is not longer adequate for the modern communicator for so many reason”   It is  also in the interest of media operators to consider  this.  The stiff competitive environment the media are involved  today means the media operators must be professionally ethically and profitably minded.  To attain this, the practitioners must embrace audience research in order to clearly understand the desires of the audience. “In  some studies researchers are seeking to determine the motivations for media use in others the goal is to determine the gratification people derive from suing the media”, said Agee etal (1985).   Okunna (1994 supports this : Through use and gratification research, communication scholars have shown that everywhere, people selectively expose  themselves to mass media contents, choosing only these media message that would serve the functions of satisfying or gratifying their needs”  This is the situation at a time, information and communication have assumed new dimension in globals scheme of things.  It is today almost the fourth essential need of man, after food,  shelter and security. Communication, whether through radio, television,  newspaper, magazine or internet is today central to the survival of man for  man’s optimal, functionality, he requires daily dosages of information, irrespective  of his area of profession. When man’s goals of media patronage are met, he reciprocates, by aiding the funding of media contents through advertisement and sponsorship.  In turn the media make profit  reinvest and thereby boost the economy.  The present poor performance of the Nigerian foundation s manifested in over – centralized location, poor funding, inefficient personnel, besides the poor quality programmes coming from them.  This has resulted in gross imbalance and pardon of the actual needs of the audience, which of course is a sight.  So, what are the present situation needs of   the television  viewership in Enugu, efforts of the local and international stations to meet them, and translate the  viewer desires into profit.  
TABLE OF CONTENTSTITLE PAGE IIAPPROVAL PAGEIIIDEDICATION IVACKNOWLEDGEMENT VABSTRACT VILIST OF TABLESTABLE OF CONTENTS VII
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTIONBACKGROUND OF THE STUDY1STATEMENT OF RESEARCH PROBLEM4OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY5SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY 6RESEARCH QUESTIONS 6RESEARCH HYPOTHESES 7DEFINITION OF TERMS 7SCOPE AND LIMITATION OF THE STUDY 9REFERENCES 10
CHAPTER TWO : LITERATURE REVIEW TELEVISION AS A MEDIUM 11THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 20CULTIVATION THEORY 20SPIRAL OF SILENCE 21REFERENCE
CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 22RESEARCH METHOD 22RESEARCH DESIGN/INSTRUMENT 23RESEARCH POPULATION AND SAMPLE24DATA COLLECTION 24METHOD OF DATA ANALYSIS25MEASURING USED TO ENSURE VALIDITY  AND RELIABILITY INSTRUMENT FOR GATHERING DATA25REFERENCE27
CHAPTER FOUR: DATA ANALYSIS AND RESEARCH INTERPRETATION 28TESTING THE RESEARCH  QUESTIONS 44DISCUSSION AND RESULT47
CHAPTER FIVE: SUMMARY OF FINDINGS,RECOMMENDATION  AND CONCLUSION 51SUMMARY  OF FINDINGS 51RECOMMENDATIONS52CONCLUSIONS 53BIBLIOGRAPHY 56APPENDICES 59