COMPARATIVE STUDY OF PUBLIC SERVICE PROGRAMMES OF SELECT PUBLIC AND PRIVATE STATIONS IN OWERRI

This study sought to identify the listenership level, knowledge level and perception of Owerri North residents towards the public service programmes of both public and private radio stations. This study was anchored on agenda setting theory and framing theory. The researchers adopted survey research design which covers residents of Owerri North who listen to the selected public and private radio stations. The selected public radio station was Orient FM and Heartland FM, while the private radio stations were Ozisa FM, Boss FM, Hot FM and Zanders FM. The researchers used a population of 287,512 and a sample size of 384 arrived at using the Australian on-line sample size calculator. The multi-stage sampling technique was adopted by the researchers to select the exact respondents used in this study. The instrument for data collection was the questionnaire. Findings revealed that Owerri North residents listen to public radio stations at a moderate level, and to private radio stations at a very high level. Owerri North residents perceive private radio station programmes to be more interesting than that of public radio stations. Also, finding revealed that Owerri North residents prefer listening to private radio station programmes, but do not do same with public radio stations. It was concluded that Owerri North residents prefer listening to private radio station different public service programmes. The researchers recommended that public radio stations should upgrade their pattern of songs played on air to the current and trendy songs their listeners can vibe with. They should as well work on upgrading their pattern and timing of sports programme presentations this will go a long way in attracting to them more sports fans.