Determents of Radio Agricultural Programmes Listenership: A Case Study of Futa FM 93.1 Radio Station in Ondo State, Nigeria

Transcription

1 AGRICULTURAL COMMUNICATIONS, 2015, 3(1): Determents of Radio Agricultural Programmes Listenership: A Case Study of Futa FM 93.1 Radio Station in Ondo State, Nigeria Oluwatosin O. Fasina Department of Agricultural Extension and Communication Technology, Federal University of Technology Akure, Ondo State, Nigeria. *Corresponding Author: royalambfuta@gmail.com (Accepted: 20 Jul. 2014) ABSTRACT The study examined the factors influencing listenership of agricultural programmes on radio in Ondo state Nigeria. Factors specifically examined were respondent s socioeconomic characteristics, relevance and appropriateness of timing of programme. A multistage sampling technique was used to select 120 respondents who were interviewed using a well structured interview schedule. Data were presented using mean and percentages while chi square analysis was used to test the study hypotheses. Data revealed that the programmes aired were perceived to be relevant to the needs of the majority (82.5%) as well as at a convenient time (83.3%). Level of listenership was significantly associated with type of farm enterprise (χ 2 = 6.89, p 0.05), household size (χ 2 = 9.65, p 0.05), relevance of programme (χ 2 =13.35, p 0.05) and appropriateness of time programmes was aired (χ 2 = 14.94, p 0.05). Target audience survey should be conducted regularly to ensure content of programme aired is relevant to felt need of audience. Keywords: Agriculture, audience, communication, farm enterprise, radio, relevance. INTRODUCTION Communication; the sharing of ideas and information forms a large part of the extension agent's job. By passing on ideas, advice and information, it is hoped that farmer s decisions are influenced (FAO, 2014). Information is disseminated through media which could be categorized under individual, group and mass methods. Mass media are those channels of communication which can expose large numbers of people to the same information at the same time. They include media which convey information by sound (radio, audio cassettes); moving pictures (television, film, video); and print (posters, newspapers, leaflets). The attraction of mass media to extension services is the high speed and low cost with which information can be communicated to people over a wide area. Although the cost of producing and transmitting a radio programme may seem high, when that cost is divided between the millions of people who may hear the programme, it is in fact a very cheap way of providing information. The use of the radio in communication is one of the oldest forms of relaying information to people at all levels. The radio is generally regarded as a receiving set, especially one for receiving the wave of adopted frequency of certain transmitters or broadcasting stations. The radio is been regarded as the most powerful medium of education and entertainment in the tropics (UNESCO, 2012). Most development expert have recommended it as the cheapest medium for reaching majority of rural farmers in many developing countries. According to UNESCO, local commercial radio grew in sub-saharan Africa by an average of 360 percent between 2000 and 2006 and community radio also grew on average by a striking 1,386 percent over the same period (UNESCO, 2012). Radio is an important tool for the rapid diffusion of important messages on agricultural innovations as well as dissemination of information on health, nutrition, family planning and other social and cultural issues (Adekunle et al., 2002). Combined with other media, it can be used for training and the transfer of technologies. It can promote dialogue and debate on the major issues of rural development as well as providing a platform for the expression of rural women's needs, opinions and aspirations. Radio programs are thus most effective when produced with audience participation, in local languages and with consideration for cultural traditions (Adekunle et al., 2002; Ojebode et al., 2010).

2 Fasina According to FAO there are, however, a number of limitations to the use of radio in extension work. Batteries are expensive and often difficult to obtain in rural areas, and there may be few repair facilities for radio sets that break down. Limitations from the listener's point of view includes; inflexibility of the medium, as a programme is transmitted at a specific time of day and if; a farmer does not switch on the radio in time, there is no further opportunity to hear it. Also, there is no record of the message. A farmer cannot stop the programme and go back to a point that was not quite understood or heard properly, and after the broadcast there is nothing to remind the farmer of the information heard. Furthermore, there is little feedback from the audience, except with a live broadcast where it is possible for listeners to telephone in their questions or points of view directly to the programme presenter. In cases where there is only one national radio station, it may be difficult to design programmes that meet particular local needs. Moreover, it may not be possible to cater for variations in agricultural practices and recommendations in different areas. However, the growth in recent years of regional and local radio stations does make it possible for locally relevant information to be broadcast, and for extension agents to become more closely involved in making radio programmes. Local radio stations may be willing to allow extension agents to have a regular weekly programme. Finally, radio broadcasts will only be attractive to farmers if they are topical and relevant to their farming problems. FUTA 93.1 FM radio station was established in November 2010 by the management of Federal University of Technology Akure, Ondo state Nigeria. It is a community radio, empowered to disseminate information aimed at informing, educating and entertaining the people of Ondo State. The signal strength of the station s transmitter is 500 watt which accounts for its community radio nature. Since the commencement of operations by the radio station, various agricultural programmes have been produced and aired to the varied audience. These programmes in both Yoruba and English have covered various subject matters in agriculture and home economics. It is however penitent to find out whether the targeted audiences are listening to such programmes and to what extent the programmes have met their needs. General Objective of the Study: The general objective of the study was to determine factors influencing listenership of radio agricultural programmes using FUTA FM 93.1 radio station in Ondo State, Nigeria as a case study. It specifically; 1. ascertained the socioeconomic characteristics of the respondents 2. determined the level of listenership of the station 3. examined the appropriateness of the time agricultural programmes are aired and 4. determined the relevance of programmes aired to the respondents Hypotheses of the Study: The following hypotheses stated in the null form were tested in the study at the 0.05 level of significance: Ho1: There is no significant relationship between socio-economic characteristics of respondents and level of listenership of the radio station. Ho2: There is no significant relationship between audience perception of relevance of program aired and appropriateness of timing and level of listenership of the radio station. METHODOLOGY The study was conducted in Ondo state, Nigeria with the capital in Akure. Radio stations in the state includes ADABA FM, OSRC POSITIVE FM, FRCN FM, FUTA 93.1FM and of recent ORANGE FM. A multistage sampling technique was used in the study. In the first stage, Akure south and Ifedore local government areas were purposively selected from among the 18 local government areas (LGAs) due to their proximity to the radio station. In the second stage, two villages within reach of the radio station airwaves were chosen in each LGA s. In the third stage, thirty farming households were randomly selected from each village and the household head responded to the interview. A total of one hundred and twenty (120) respondents were used for the study. Data were collected using a pre-tested, wellstructured interview schedule on socio-economic characteristics of the farmers. Descriptive statistics such as mean, percentage, frequency distribution were used present findings of the study. The Chisquare analysis was used to test the significance of the study hypotheses. Relevance of radio programme aired was measured on a four-point likert scale and scored as follows; not relevant-1, a bit relevant-2, relevant-3 and very relevant-4. The score for this scale was categorized into low and high relevance using the mean score. Level of listenership of radio station was measured on a four-point likert scale and scored as follows; not at all-1, rarely-2, sometimes-3 and most times-4. The score for this scale was categorized into low and high listenership using the mean score. The categories were used in the chi square analysis. The appropriateness of timing was measured on a three point scale of not convenient -1, convenient-2 and very convenient-3. Face validity by experts in 51

3 AGRICULTURAL COMMUNICATIONS the field of agricultural extension and communication was used to adjudge the validity of the scales used as containing important variables to be measured. The split half method was used to ascertain the reliability of the instrument and this gave a value of 0.82 and 0.85 for the level of listernership and appropriateness of timing scales respectively. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Data as shown on Table 1 reveals that majority of the respondents were males (90.0%) while female headed households were 10.0% of the sample. This corroborates the findings of other authors that male headed households are predominant in the south west of Nigeria (Togunu-Bickersteth, 1988; Fasina and Adekoya, 2010). Table 1. Socio-economic characteristics of respondents. Characteristics Frequency Percentage (n = 120) Sex Male Female Household Size Less than 6 persons persons Above 10 persons Age (years) Less than Above 60 years Level of Education No Formal Education Primary School Level Secondary/Modern School Level University Education Farm Enterprise Crop Production only Animal Husbandry only Crop and animal production The mean household size for the study was 9 persons. This is rather large but not as large as 11 persons as revealed in another study also in Ondo State (Baruwa and Oke, 2012). Those in the 6-10 persons category were the largest (58.8%) followed by those above 10 persons (35.4%) and those below 6 persons (5.8%). This finding is also in line with other studies that indicated large household sizes in the rural areas of south west Nigeria (Fasina and Adekoya, 2010). Large household sizes are likely due to the need for manual labour required for agricultural activities which can be freely provided by the household members so as to reduce cost of production. Average age for the study was 49.9 years with majority falling in the years category (52.5%), followed by those above 60 years (29.1%) and those below 40 years (18.3%). This finding implies an ageing farming population, which corroborates the findings of other studies (Togunu- Bickersteth, 1988; National Bureau of Statistics, 2009; Mafimisebi and Oguntade, 2011). Majority of the respondents had primary education (41.7%) which was closely followed by those with no formal education (40.0%). Those with secondary education followed (17.5%) and then tertiary education (0.8%). This reveals the fact that majority of those in the rural areas are either without formal education or only with primary education which enables them to only read and write. It is thus consequential that the radio which is user friendly and cuts across all levels of education be harnessed vigorously to disseminate agricultural information to a mostly unsophisticated rural population. Most of the respondents were involved only in crop production activities (74.2%) while those involved in animal husbandry alone were 20.8% and those involved in both were only 5.0%. this means that majority of the farmers will likely be interested in information concerning crop production rather than animal production and thus more focus should be on crop production, storage and processing activities. Distribution of respondents according to marital status as shown on Figure 1 reveals that the largest portion of respondents representing 90% of the respondents were married, 5.0% were divorced while 1.7% and 3.3% were single and widow respectively. This finding further buttresses the fact that they had large household sizes as only the married can have households. Fig. 1. Distribution of respondents according to marital status. Listenership of FUTA FM 93.1 Radio Station: In the study area, all the respondents (100.0%) owned at least one radio set. This corroborates that of UNESCO which affirmed that between 80-90% of households in Africa has access to a functional radio set (UNESCO, 2012). Households in the study area also received the FUTA FM station signal on their radio sets, which enabled quality assessment of the radio station audience. Level of listenership of radio stations in the study area is presented on Figure 2. More respondents listened to ADABA FM station (95.8%) than FUTA FM station 52

4 Fasina (87.5%). It further reveals that ADABA FM station (located in Ondo State) had the highest level of listenership, with a mean score of This is however; closely followed by FUTA FM 93.1 with a mean score of 2.28 then Positive FM (located in Ondo State) with 1.24, Progress FM (located in Ekiti State) with 0.59 and Living spring FM (located in Osun State) with Fig. 2. Level of Listenership of Radio Stations in the Study Area. The close rivalry between ADABA and FUTA FM when further examined revealed that respondents, who listened to radio, listened more to FUTA FM most times (57.2%) than ADABA (42.5%). The reason why the mean score for FUTA was lower was because those who did not listen at all to the radio station were more (12.5%) than that of ADABA (4.2%). This means respondents are more favourably disposed to the ADABA station. This may be due to misconceptions that the FUTA radio station programmes may be tailored to only its immediate community members. Thus ADABA which is a privately owned but a broad based station may be preferred. This implies that awareness should be created on the activities and benefits of FUTA radio station and citizens could be encouraged to listen to it as most programmes aired are also beneficial to those outside the FUTA community. Perception of Respondents on Programme Aired: With regards to appropriateness of time in which the agricultural programmes were aired, majority as shown on Table 2, indicated the time were very convenient for them (43.3%) while 40.0% indicated it was convenient and 16.7% indicated the periods were not convenient. This reveals that the time allotted to the programmes were convenient for majority of the respondents and there may not be need for a change in time. The appropriateness of the time is very crucial to the listernership of the station and its programmes. This is because listernership of radio by many is done while being involved in another task. Since it is only an audio communication, listerners may be involved in some psychomotor activities while listening to radio. Therefore finding time when listerners may be idle to sit and listen may be difficult, but if they agree that they are still able to listen to programmes aired despite tight personal schedules then the programmes will have a high listenership and achieve its aims. Table 2. Distribution of respondents according to perception of programme characteristics. A Appropriateness of time of Agricultural programme Frequency (n =120) Percentage Not convenient Convenient Very convenient B Perceived Relevance of programme to respondents Very relevant Relevant A bit relevant Not relevant Relevance of agricultural programme aired on FUTA radio to respondents needs is also presented on Table 2. It reveals that majority of the respondents (51.7%) perceive the programmes to be relevant while 20.8% indicated that they were very relevant. Those who said they were a bit relevant were 10.0% and 17.5% said they were not relevant. This implies that the agricultural programmes aired on the radio station have been of relevance to majority of the respondents. Thus the agricultural programmes on the radio station were fulfilling its mandate in meeting the felt needs of the respondents and the radio station was also fulfilling the objectives for which it was being established. The issue of relevance is also crucial in the quest to make respondents/audience listen to the radio programmes. This is because the audience will not waste their time listening to a programme that may not contribute to their welfare or one that is does not meet their felt need. It is thus necessary for radio programmers to conduct proper information needs assessment to ensure that programmes aired are relevant to the needs of their targeted audience. 53

5 AGRICULTURAL COMMUNICATIONS Hypotheses Testing: The results of the first hypothesis which stated that there was no significant relationship between socio-economic characteristic of farmers and level of listenership of the radio station is presented on Table 3. The results show that only household size (χ 2 = 9.65, p 0.05) and type of farm enterprise (χ 2 = 6.89, p 0.05) of the respondents were significantly related to the level of listenership of the radio station at the 0.05 level of significance as their p-values were less than It can be implied that the higher the household size, which for this study is high (9 persons), the higher will be the financial and food requirement of such families. Thus, the significance of the household size could be due to the higher demand for food and financial resources by the farmer s household, which makes him veracious for information that, could help him improve his production in order to cater for household needs. The significance of the farming system could be due to the relevance of the information disseminated on the programme to the farmers. Thus those who perceive their information needs are being met with regards to the type of crop and animal enterprise they are involved in will listen more to the radio programmes (Adekunle et al., 2002). Relevance of programme aired to audience felt needs is thus seen as a germane factor in radio listenership. Other personal characteristics like sex (χ 2 = 0.31, p 0.05), educational level (χ 2 = 3.23, p 0.05), age (χ 2 = 7.92, p 0.05) and marital status (χ 2 = 1.82, p 0.05) did not have any significant relationship with level of radio listenership, as their p values were higher than This underscores the notion that radio has universal access and is not constrained by socio economic factors and personal characteristics due to its low cost and comprehension of languages spoken and does not need any form of training or literacy to be operated and utilized. This finding further buttresses the fact that radio is a communication tool that cuts across socioeconomic divides and is therefore of great importance to rural work (Adekunle et al., 2002). Variables Table 3. Results of the chi square analysis. Hypothesis 1 X 2 value D.F p- Value Decision Sex Not Significant Education level Not Significant Age Not Significant Marital Status Not Significant Total Household size Significant Farm enterprise Significant Hypothesis 2 Relevance of the programme Significant Appropriate timing of the programme Significant The results of the second hypothesis which stated that there was no significant relationship between audience perception of relevance of program aired and appropriateness of timing and level of listenership of the radio station, is presented on Table 3. The analysis reveals a significant association between relevance of programme to farmers and level of listenership at the 0.05 level of significance (χ 2 =13.35, p 0.05). This implies that the extent to which respondents perceive the relevance and importance of the programmes to their livelihood the more they will listen to such programmes. Thus programme content is consequential to programme acceptance by the audience (Adekunle et al., 2002). This is also buttressed by the significance of the relationship between radio listenership and farming system. If the contents do not meet the audienceneeds then they will likely listen less to it. Thus it is pertinent that audience survey be conducted regularly so that efforts at programming will not be wasted. The appropriateness of the time the programme was aired was also significantly related to the level of listenership of the radio station (χ 2 = 14.94, p 0.05). This implies that proper understanding of the time use pattern of farmers need to be examined by programmers to be able to schedule programmes at the time they will be opportune to listen to such programmes (Ojebode et al., 2010). CONCLUSION In conclusion, the study examined factors influencing listenership of radio agricultural programmes in Ondo State Nigeria. It concluded that agricultural programme aired by the FUTA FM station was adequately relevant to the current needs of the respondents. Listenership of the agricultural programme was influenced by the relevance of the programme and appropriateness of the time of the programme. The study also found out that type of farm enterprise and household size 54

6 Fasina were the only socioeconomic characteristics of respondents that significantly influenced their listenership of the radio programme. It is thus recommended that regular target audience research be conducted by presenters of radio agricultural programmes to determine needs of their audience as well as convenience of the time for such programmes, such that relevant content will be aired by the station at the convenient time to encourage wide and frequent listenership. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The assistance of Mr. Bamigbade Taiwo is appreciated for collecting data of this study. REFERENCES Adekunle A.A., J.E. Onyibe, O.M. Ogunyinka, Z.E. Omenesa, S.J. Auta and A.U Kuyello Agricultural information dissemination: an audience survey in Kano State. International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ibadan, Nigeria. 26p. Akosile A Fayemi targets N1bn IGR, advocates roads toll. ( Baruwa O.I. and J.T.O. Oke Analysis of the technical efficiency of small-holder cocoyam farms in Ondo State, Nigeria. Tropiculture. 30(1): FAO Extension and Communication in Guide to Extension Training. An FAO Coporate Document Repository. FAO Rome. ( munication) Fasina O.O. and Adekoya A. E Personal characteristics predisposing children to agricultural involvement among the Yoruba s in South West Nigeria. KRE Journal Studies of Tribes and Tribals. 8: Togunu-Bickersteth F Perception of old age among Yoruba aged. Journal of Comparative Family Studies. 19 (1): Mafimisebi T.E. and Oguntade A.E Health infrastructure inequality and rural urban utilization of traditional and orthodox medicine in farming households: a case study of Ekiti State Nigeria. Health management. INTECH Open Access Publisher, Croatia. pp: National Bureau of Statistics Social statistics in Nigeria Federal Republic of Nigeria. 418 p. Ojebode A., P. Onekutu and T. Adegbola Audience research methods for campus radio stations. Published by institute for media and society, Lagos, Nigeria 81pp UNESCO Communication and informationstatistics on radio. ( 55