History of the Nigerian Mass Media
What is today’s known as mass media in Nigeria came chronologically i.e from one stage to the other, from one technological advancement to the other, from one regime or government or the other. There is no doubt about the fact that print media pioneered and ushered the history of the Nigerian mass media.
However, despite the disagreements among earlier scholars, researchers and media experts on how and when the press began in Nigeria, yet most of the scholars and experts agreed that Nigerian’s first newspaper was Iwe-Iroyin fun Awon Egba (the Newspaper for the Egba People) floated by Reverend Henry Townsend in Abeokuta in 1859 (Lawal, 2014). The newspaper was published in Yoruba language with its English supplement came in March 1860, although it was mainly a Christian evangelical paper (Aliagan, 2006).
From the humble beginning of the print journalism in 1859, different newspapers and magazines have emerged; later the nation witnessed another development of electronic media particularly the radio services through British Broadcasting Corporation Rediffusion in 1932 among other growth in the broadcast media up till date (Oyekanmi, 2018).
This piece shall holistically examined history of the Nigerian mass media particularly the broadcast media with emphasis on the radio and television respectively from 1932 till today.