Compliance with Regulations on Local Contents among Select Pay TV Providers in Nigeria

Background: The NBC code in Chapter 11 chapter 11 mandates that pay subscription must actively promote Nigeria in the global market as part of their local content offerings. It specifies in its sub-section 14.1B that pay subscription TV services must include a minimum of twenty percent local content, with fifteen percent dedicated to Nigerian and five percent African within their channel lineup. Additionally, the regulation stipulates that any pay subscription provider failing to meet these requirements will be subject to a mandatory penalty, which is to be deposited into the local content development fund. Objective: The objective of the study was to check the compliance of pay TV providers in Nigeria with the regulation on local content. Method: The paper is based on a non-participant observation and review of the documents on compliance to pay TV quota of 20% of local content. Results: There was clear indication of a policy on the local content quota which puts the minimum expectation at 20% - and this was not met by pay TV operators in the country solely on the grounds that the NBC has not performed its duties of compliance monitoring dutifully. Conclusion: The NBC's policy on local content for pay TV is known to the stakeholders – both the NBC and the pay TV operators but that there is no compliance on the grounds that the commission has not shown commitment to compliance monitoring which is the reason there is disregard for the policy. Unique contribution: Builds on further knowledge on NBC's policy on local content by pay TV in Nigeria. It also opened up on the compliance monitoring by the regulatory body underpinning the lack of compliance to the defective monitoring by the NBC. Key recommendation: The paper recommends among other things that the NBC should reinstate its review of monitoring reports on broadcasting stations to include Pay-TV platforms and their compliance with local content regulations.