Ethical compliance of reality TV shows in Nigeria: Weighing big brother Nigeria on the regulatory scale of national broadcasting code

The popularity and acceptance of reality television has spread worldwide. They are created and aired using actual individuals in real time. Many of its viewers, especially young people in our culture, have developed some form of addiction to it. Broadcast ethics are regulations that are essentially necessary to put some level of checks and moral guidelines to every broadcast content, and Big Brother Nigeria as a broadcast programme expressly requires ethical codes. The focus of this study therefore, was to investigate if the Big Brother Nigeria show agrees with ethical regulations of National Broadcasting Commission. The objectives developed were to ascertain the extent BBN reality show falls under the ethical compliance of the NBC regulations; to find out if there are contents of the BBN show that undermine the NBC code; to know to what level BBN conforms to the NBC code. The social responsibility theory was found ideal to anchor the study. A population of 201 was drawn from the Ogun State chapter of Nigerian Union of Journalist-NUJ. Using the Slovin’s formula, and applying the 0.5 confidence level, a sample size of 134 was realised. Also, the study relied on document analysis of the NBC code and subjected the document to textual analysis which was then cross-referenced with the survey results. The findings revealed that (97%) agreed BBN falls under the regulatory control of the NBC. It was agreed by (97.2%) of the respondents that BBN does not comply with the ethical guidelines of the NBC code. From the results, it was concluded that BBN show falls very short of the ethical and professional requirements of TV broadcasting in Nigeria. The study recommended that media self-censorship should be adopted and massive sensitization campaign be carried out to educate complying with ethical ratings of such broadcast contents that may offend their sensibilities. The study also indicated that strict regulation and control should be applied to BBN show by the NBC, as well as, incorporating NBC standards into the BBN house rules for housemates.