Abstract:

Messages through the mass media can help in reinforcing positive values among citizens of a country. For
a long time, documentary films have been used in the United States of America and other countries in the
Western hemisphere as tools for public enlightenment. Over the years, terrestrial broadcasting has played
a major role in public enlightenment campaigns in Nigeria. With the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA)
serving as the only channel of nationwide audio-visual content before the deregulation of broadcasting,
Nigerians all over relied on it for information. Most of these messages came in the form of advertisements,
public service announcements, drama presentations and films. Recent research has shown that audience see
documentary films as a more reliable factual content than news. How has the Nigerian Television Authority
utilised its platform to diversify the use of documentary films in civic engagements? With the advent of
digitization, the NTA has four channels on DSTV, out of the four, none is dedicated to documentary films.
A station like the CCTV has four channels on DSTV and one of these channels is dedicated to documentary
films about China. The fledgling funds model of documentary impact was used as the supporting theoretical
model for the paper. The methodology is a comparative analysis of CCTV and NTA. This research
recommended that the NTA should consider having a dedicated channel for documentary films that will
showcase Nigeria to the rest of the world.