Professional Assessment of Creative Arts Content in Nigerian National Television Broadcasting

National television broadcasting carries significant responsibility for sustaining, promoting, and innovating creative arts content accessible to mass audiences across Nigeria's diverse cultural regions, and a professional assessment of this content dimension within NTA's programming provides important insight for arts broadcasting policy. This study professionally assessed creative arts content within Nigerian Television Authority national and state channel programming, focusing on NTA Network and three state NTA channels covering the South East, North West, and South South zones. A content audit and stakeholder assessment methodology was employed, combining systematic content analysis of two-week broadcast schedules from each channel (totalling 336 programming hours), structured interviews with twelve NTA programming directors, and focus groups with 24 audience members. Content audit results showed that defined creative arts programming occupied 8.3 percent of total broadcast time on average, comprising traditional music performances, cultural documentary segments, and drama productions. Contemporary visual art, experimental performance, and arts commentary programming were absent from all audited schedules. Documentary production quality was rated as adequate by only 41.7 percent of professional respondents. Diaspora and youth audiences were identified as critically underserved by existing arts content. The study concludes that NTA's creative arts mandate is being inadequately fulfilled and recommends a dedicated arts broadcasting strategy, commissioning budget allocations for arts documentary production, and partnership frameworks with the National Gallery of Art and NCAC for content development.

Keywords: television broadcasting, creative arts content, NTA programming, arts policy, cultural broadcasting