The National Broadcasting Commission, NBC has imposed fine ranging from the sum of Two Hundred and Fifty Thousand Naira (250,000) to Three Hundred Thousand Naira (300,000) to nineteen broadcast stations across Nigeria between April and June 2020.
The fines were imposed over for misinformation or false health advisory about Corona-virus (COVID-19).
The commission in its second quarter breach profile of broadcast stations in Nigeria explained that a total of seven hundred and sixteen (716) infractions of the NBC Code were sanctioned by the Commission between the period.
However, it was only 22 (3%) of the infractions that had financial penalty
“Out of the 716 infractions sanctioned, only 22 (3%) were financial penalty. The remaining 694 (97%) were either cautions or warnings for obscenity, political, hate speech, unverifiable claims, unprofessionalism, advertisements and technical breaches (See Breakdown attached).
“Advertisement breaches were the dominant infractions for the quarter accounting for 51% of all sanctions, followed by unverifiable claims to cure by tradomedics and preachers with 17%.
“Unprofessionalism especially in the handling of news and current affairs programming was the third dominant breach accounting for 12% of all infractions recorded,” the commission expalined.
Stations that penalized for misinformation were Breeze FM, Lafia, Adaba FM Akure, Midland FM Ilorin, Royal FM Ilorin and Wave FM Port Harcourt.