Audience Reception and Interpretation of Political Satire in Nigerian Television Comedy

This study examines how Nigerian television audiences receive and interpret political satire in popular comedy programmes. Political satire on Nigerian television, as exemplified by programmes such as AY's Comedy and various sketch comedy formats, uses humour to critique governance, corruption, and social inequality. The research investigates the mechanisms of satirical encoding employed by writers and performers and how these messages are decoded by diverse audience segments. Using a reception analysis framework, data were collected from focus group discussions with twenty-four audience members drawn from different socio-economic and educational backgrounds in Lagos. Video clips from three popular comedy programmes were used as stimuli for audience discussion. The study finds that while most participants recognise the satirical intent of political comedy, interpretation varies significantly based on educational level, political affiliation, and prior exposure to political discourse. Highly educated participants tended to read satire as subversive critique, while less educated participants sometimes received the same content as straightforward comedy. The research concludes that political satire on Nigerian television operates within complex interpretive horizons and recommends further research into the relationship between media literacy and satirical comprehension. Keywords: political satire, television comedy, audience reception, Nigerian media, cultural interpretation.